


Get Loud

by haechansheaven



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Small Town, American Football Player Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun, Blood, Bullying, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Minor Violence, Recreational Drug Use, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Troublemaker Mark Lee (NCT), Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22809631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haechansheaven/pseuds/haechansheaven
Summary: Standing on the edge of the cliff, Jaehyun decides to take the jump.He hopes that someone will catch him.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Mark Lee
Comments: 45
Kudos: 75





	1. Hot Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaehyun melts under the sun before putting himself back together.

Jaehyun thinks that he’s melting from the inside out. He’s not sure what the temperature is in degrees, though he doesn’t think it really matters. What matters is that he thinks he might fucking _die_ if the air conditioning isn’t fixed in the next few hours. Donghyuck calls him overdramatic, rolling his eyes at his older brother before hopping on his bike and riding off to wherever it is that he disappears on summer days.

He’s sinking into the floor, he thinks as his father walks into the living room, running his hands through his graying hair in frustration. It’s not a good sign, Jaehyun thinks, blinking as a phone call is made.

“Hello, Mr. Lee,” his father says with a sigh, “it’s Myungdae Jung. I’m sure you’ve been up to your neck in calls all day from the power outage. The power company has informed us all that electricity is back online, and I’m clearly confirming this through this call… It seems that our air conditioning has managed to kick the bucket when the power went out as well.”

The room falls silent, and Jaehyun can hear the faint buzzing of Mr. Saegook Lee’s voice through the receiver on the other side of the couch. Whatever he says clearly isn’t to his father’s taste, though he acquiesces to whatever with a sigh.

“Whatever’s the fastest.” Silence, again. “Great. Thanks, Mr. Lee.”

Lifting his head from the floor, it takes everything in Jaehyun to sit himself up, blinking wearily at his father from the ground. It’s disgusting, the way his bare, sweaty skin detaches itself from the floor, picking up dust and stray hairs, though it’s not like Jaehyun can _do_ anything about it. His father is gone before he can ask anything, disappearing up the stairs, voice reverberating against the walls. Jaehyun can’t discern what he’s saying, but he can feel the contempt.

His mother, moments later, appears before him, dusted fan in her arms. It’s quiet as she sets it up in front of him before placing it on the second setting. The action is a quiet gesture of love and, paired with the gentle pat on the top of his head, works some of the tension from his shoulders.

“Workers from Mr. Lee’s business will be stopping by soon to fix the air conditioning. You won’t have to sit in this heat for much longer,” she says with a smile. “Can you hold out until then? Otherwise, I’m sure Jungwoo’s family would let you hang out there until it’s fixed.”

His hand waves weakly as Jaehyun comes to the conclusion that he’s sweaty enough—he’s not sure he wants to get even sweatier by walking several blocks over. “I’m okay, mom. I can stick it out.”

“Okay, sweetie. When the workers get here, let them in, will you? Your father will show them to the HVAC system.”

“Got it, mom.”

“Thank you, Jaehyun. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.” She turns to leave him before pausing beside the couch with a smile. “And be sure to offer them something to drink while they’re working. I’m sure they’ll get thirsty.”

“Yes, mom,” Jaehyun mutters, head drooping as he closes his eyes.

The fan is the barest of reprieves from the mid-summer heat, and all Jaehyun hopes is that the air conditioning is back up and running by the time captain’s practices are starting. His coach’s criticisms of resting in the air conditioning when overheated echo in his ears, though Jaehyun really doesn’t care when it’s the summer and the sun is in the sky until eight in the evening and the players are sweating so much he’s sure that they’re all on the cusp of dehydration.

He’s not sure how much time passes before there’s a knocking at the door and Jaehyun is forced to stand, grimacing at the sensation of his feet sticking to the floor. The walk from his spot in the living room to the front door, literally right in front of him, feels like a fucking marathon, and he’s not sure how an entire summer of working out in the heat hasn’t prepared him for a short walk.

Jaehyun, once the door is open, understands the origin of his father’s aggravation. John Suh, flanked by Taeyong Lee and Yuta Nakamoto, stands in the doorway, shit-eating grin on his face. Jaehyun knows them—or, of them, rather. He’s heard the rumors and, at one point in his life, tried to understand them. Somewhere along the way it became easier for Jaehyun to just write them off as trouble.

“Great. You’re here,” Jaehyun’s father says from behind him.

“Mr. Jung.”

“Let me show you all to the HVAC system,” his father says, shouldering past Jaehyun. “It’s by the side of the house.”

“Lead away, Mr. Jung,” is Johnny’s lazy reply as they move out of his way.

Jaehyun feels his mouth dry as they begin to walk away. He thinks to think of himself as someone with self-restraint and a good sense of self-worth. All of that throws itself out a fucking window as he lands his eyes on a bored figure that brings up the rear, hidden behind the three workers. He’s bored—bored as fuck to the point that he’s left staring at the sky as he waits for the other to pass him by.

He all but chokes as this man reaches up to swipe his hair away from his face. Jaehyun _knows_ that it’s a warm summer day. He himself is in a makeshift sleeveless shirt, the sleeves long torn off in a desperate attempt to cool down after a nasty workout. And Jaehyun has seen his fair share of men with nice bodies—controlled himself from drooling over them. So, he’s not sure what’s so different this time, feeling himself die in his very spot as they toss Jaehyun a lazy grin before strolling after the others.

Slamming the door shut, Jaehyun groans. Of fucking _course_ he would pop a boner because of a fucking handyman. Of _fucking_ course.

* * *

“Oh, shit,” John says, reaching up to take a bottle of Gatorade. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” Jaehyun hopes that his smile isn’t tense as he offers bottles to the others, pointedly avoiding the gaze of the youngest. “Sorry it isn’t water. These were easier to carry, but I didn’t want you guys to dehydrate or anything.”

Taeyong’s voice is soft as he replies, legs crossed as he sits on the grass beside John. “This is great. Thank you.”

“Hey, the season’s about to start, right? Excited?” Yuta asks, reaching out to wipe sweat from the back of John’s neck. Something about the gesture feels painfully intimate, and Jaehyun averts his gaze as he smiles and nods. “Nice. Looking forward to maybe catching a game or two.”

Jaehyun can’t say that he expected to hear that from him, though he takes pride in his career as a member of the football team, particularly through clinching the coveted positions of quarterback _and_ captain for his senior year. He’s puffing out his chest the _smallest_ bit as he says, “We’ll hopefully be headed to states this year.”

“Markie over here would’ve been your year if he was still in school,” John says, preoccupied with examining the HVAC system. The man in question lifts a bored hand in greeting as he swallows a mouthful of Gatorade. It’s a moment before Jaehyun _recognizes_ him. Mark Lee. “We tried to tell him to stick with it, but he just never listens.”

“Stop waxing poetic like you’re my old man or something,” mutters Mark with a grimace. “Stop acting like I fucked up my entire life by dropping out.”

“He’ll get his GED,” Yuta says, voice firm as he shoots at glare in the younger man’s direction, “or we’re kicking him out.”

Mark rolls his eyes as he sits himself back up. He’s leaning on his head now, strands of hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, stubborn as they fall flat against his forehead despite his attempts to push them out of the way. “You couldn’t kick me out even if you wanted to… That’s not a fucking dare, though. I _just_ bought that fucking bedframe.”

“Yeah, and who _drove_ you to buy that bedframe, huh?” John asks, eyebrow raised. “It was us, wasn’t it?”

Falling silent, Mark flops himself backwards again, nothing else to say. It earns a laugh from the others, and Jaehyun stands there, feeling out of place. He’s quiet, watching as John sits back on his haunches to look up at Jaehyun with a grin.

“Good news and bad news.”

“About?”

There’s a vague gesture to the HVAC system and Jaehyun nods. John seems to be tossing words around in his head before he speaks. “This seems to be in _pretty_ great shape. Everything for the most part is in working order except for the condenser and evaporator coils. We’ll have to shut off the power to the HVAC in order to clean them, but it looks like that’s the only issue. That’s not my expertise, though, so I’m hands off and Yuta will be handling the rest of the job.”

“That shouldn’t be an issue,” Jaehyun says.

“It might be for your father,” replies Taeyong, standing up. “I’ll go tell him and turn off the breaker. When I come back out you should be good to start.”

John mutters a, “Thanks, ‘Yong,” as he flops backwards, frowning as he leaves the shade of the house, eyes blinded by the sun. Jaehyun can relate to the sensation deeply, holding his hand out for Yuta’s empty bottle. He holds it against his chest until he reaches for John’s, thanking him with a nod as he takes it.

“Thanks for the drinks, by the way,” Yuta says with a grin. “The hospitality is surprising but appreciated.”

“Oh.” A slight sweat builds on the back of Jaehyun’s neck as he swallows. He isn’t sure if they could feel the lack of receptiveness from him and his father, though Jaehyun is sure that they weren’t subtle. “Well, you know. It’s the middle of the summer or whatever. It would be fucked up if we didn’t, right?”

“Momentary kindness doesn’t make up for shit behavior on every other turn,” bites back Mark, tossing his half-finished drink up into the air. 

Jaehyun isn’t sure what to say, choosing to avoid Mark’s gaze as Taeyong returns, hands pressed together. Taeyong is a break to the atmosphere and Jaehyun takes it as the opportunity to escape, listening to Taeyong’s voice echo against the side of the house. He greets his mother in the doorway, her gaze bright and cheery as she takes the empty bottles, rinsing them out in the sink before tossing them into the recycling bin.

“Thank you for doing that, sweetheart.”

Reaching up, she pushes Jaehyun’s hair away from his face with a fond smile. Jaehyun likes to think that he’s a good mix of his mother and his father, both in looks and personality. Sometimes, though, he’s reminded that many of his traits seem to stem from his father. There’s a gentle slope to his actions and his words, instilled in him from his mother, though everything else screams Myungdae Jung. For the most part he’s proud of it. Sometimes, though, he wonders if he could learn to take a larger lesson in humility from his mother and younger brother.

Donghyuck takes after their mother more than Jaehyun, and it’s evident from the free-flowing nature of his ways. His friends tell him to let it go—that it’s a younger sibling thing. Jaehyun, however, is more astute in his observations; confident in his analyses. Upon further thought, Jaehyun thinks that he _definitely_ can take a lesson in humility from his mother.

He’s not sure how exactly to go about that and what it entails, though he’s sure that it might have something to do with the rag-tag group of four outside their house, baking in the summer heat as Jaehyun lounges in his room, sprawled on his bed, fielding messages from his team. There’s another time, though, to think about this that won’t cut into the hour he sets aside to answer questions about upcoming captain’s practices and equipment requirements.

Outside his door, his father passes by.

* * *

Jungwoo’s shoulder collides with his as he strolls to his car, equipment in hand clattering to the ground. He’s swearing as he picks it up, Jungwoo’s smile wide as he leans against the car. It’s silent as he tosses their things in the back seat before clambering in. There’s no relief until they’re driving off, windows down and radio blasting.

“You coming to my beginning of the year party?” Jungwoo asks, arm sticking out the window.

Raising an eyebrow, Jaehyun rolls to a halt at the stop sign before hanging a left onto the empty road. “Why should I? Last fucking time we nearly got the cops called on us. I’m not trying to fuck up my senior year.”

“I _know_ that. Jesus Christ. You act like I don’t know the fact that my best friend is headed to college on a football scholarship,” mutters Jungwoo with a roll of his eyes. Jaehyun feels bad for snapping for a _second_ before Jungwoo is rambling off about how his parents will be out of town again and they don’t even pretend to lock the liquor cabinet anymore. 

Jaehyun is sure that he’s heard this rant before, minus the barely-changing top fifty pop songs that are playing in the background. It’s not a surprise to him anymore that Jungwoo’s parents are out of town again. Leaving their son to fend for himself again. It’s a pattern that leaves a sour taste in Jaehyun’s mouth, even if Jungwoo seems unperturbed by the constant abandonment.

He knows that it’s a by-product of his own parents always being there, perhaps _too_ present in his life at times. And he has his own issues with his parents, of course, though they don’t present themselves in conversation seeing as there isn’t any space for them.

“Hey, Jungwoo.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you remember our parents saying about Mark Lee?”

Jungwoo falls silent, a rarity, staring at Jaehyun in confusion. And he gets it. Jaehyun isn’t one to stick his neck out in places it can be torn to pieces. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. He and his… friends? Came to fix our HVAC a few weeks ago,” Jaehyun answers. And it’s about as honest as he’s willing to be with Jungwoo, skirting around the fact that Mark Lee made his mouth run dry and feel a way he hadn’t in months. “So, you know. It was a while since I had seen him around.”

“High school drop-out. He was the year above us, I’m pretty sure. Got kicked out of his house and started living with those three that work for Mr. Lee.” His delivery is apathetic at best, and Jaehyun wonders what exactly it is about Mark that attracts his attention. “Bums around working with them when he can. Not sure what he does otherwise.”

Jaehyun doesn’t have a reply, so he turns down the radio and listens as Jungwoo doesn’t miss a beat, returning to his impassioned rants about the long list of people attending his party. If Jaehyun were a better friend—or simply a better person—he would at least pretend to listen to Jungwoo. He isn’t a good person like that, though. A few names here or there catch his attention, like Mingyu Kim, captain of the soccer team, or Yibo Wang, captain of the cross-country team. Jaehyun’s not surprised to hear their names, though.

And he’ll make a hollow promise to attend before offering up some half-hearted excuse as to why he can’t attend, and Jungwoo won’t even a bat an eye at that point, probably so fucking drunk that he won’t remember that Jaehyun wasn’t there.

Parked in front of Jungwoo’s house, he puts the car in park, leaning against his hand as he waits for Jungwoo to slam the back door shut. It’s a signal that his equipment is out of the car and Jaehyun is one step closer to eating dinner and calling it a night. Nothing is ever that simple, though, as evidenced from his friend leaning into the still-open passenger window with a shit-eating grin.

“So. You gonna come?”

“To what?”

“Don’t fucking joke like that, man,” Jungwoo says, frown building on his face. “Come to my party. You can dip whenever you want. Plus, this girl was asking if you were coming. Her name’s Rosie or something? No fucking clue. But, come so you can break her heart in _person_ at a _party_ instead of in the school hallways.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, foot on the break as he shifts to drive. “I haven’t dated all of high school. That shit isn’t gonna change for one girl.”

“Ugh. How’d I end up best friends with a fuckin’ heart breaker?” groans Jungwoo, standing tall. “Whatever. Just show up for, like, _fifteen_ minutes. I don’t think that’s asking for all that much, is it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Jaehyun answers somewhat honestly. It’s a half-lie, because Jaehyun will think about it—feel guilty for a few hours for deciding not to go before it’s washed away by sleep. “I’m probably gonna be driving Donghyuck back and forth to his friends or something, and I don’t want him fucking snitching about me smelling like weed I wasn’t even smoking.”

“Lame, but I understand. Just keep me updated, man.”

“You got it.”

He sits in his car, radio playing softly as he waits for Jungwoo to get inside before driving the five minutes to his house, two neighborhoods over. The house is quiet as he enters, sound echoing to him from his father’s office, muffled from the door. A conference call, he assumes, eyeing the two empty plates at the dinner table. Donghyuck gestures for him to sit down, helping his mother bring the food to the table.

“How was practice, bro?” Donghyuck asks, eyes wide.

Ruffling Donghyuck’s hair, he grins. “It was awesome.”

Even if he can’t be the greatest all the time, Jaehyun doesn’t mind as long as his brother still thinks of him as a hero.

In the back of his mind, he laments the fact he got a fucking boner from a high school dropout.

* * *

Jaehyun tries his hardest to not seem _too_ apologetic when turning down yet another suitor, confident that their summer glow-up is enough to puncture his shields. It’s not—and it never will be—though he mentally gives this one some points for her gusto in confessing to him in front of his classroom, before the day had even begun.

It’s rambunctious as he enters the classroom, tossing his backpack on the ground near a desk that’s beside Jungwoo. They’ll be assigned seats, eventually forced to stand up by the higher power that is their teacher who pointedly places Jungwoo and Jaehyun as far apart from one another as possible. Though it’s not like _Jaehyun_ is the one causing issues during class.

“Cold, dude,” Mingyu says, turning around in his chair as Jaehyun sits. “We could hear her crying from in here.”

Minghao scoffs, head held up by his hand as he glances Jaehyun’s way. “Please. We all knew it was a fucking trainwreck from the start. Jaehyun’s just set in his ways. Nothing anyone can do about it.”

“Damn straight,” Jaehyun says. “Congrats, by the way, for being named swim team captain. And same to you, Sicheng, for diving. Looking forward to another state championship from you guys.”

“But the real question,” shoots back Minghao, “is if we can expect one from _y’all_ this year. I feel like it’s the last shot this school’s gonna have at getting to states.”

Jaehyun’s laugh is tight. It’s not like he didn’t already have the coach and his dad breathing down his fucking neck. But, there’s some ounce of truth to Minghao’s words, and Jaehyun acknowledges that. The incoming and upcoming classes are all weaker, a larger majority of students preferring to defer to soccer for their fall sport or choose to for-go a fall sport overall in favor of preparing themselves for their primary sport.

If Jaehyun hadn’t chosen to focus on football, he knows that he would’ve given it up for lacrosse. He would’ve been one of those players with budding talent who had chosen to throw it to another cause.

“If we don’t make it to states,” Jaehyun says, firm, “I’ll buzz my hair.”

“No shit?” asks Sicheng, head whipping to face Jaehyun. “For fucking real? Holy shit.”

“I got you on fucking tape,” Mingyu waves his phone around, “so there’s no backing out. No states, you get a buzz.”

“I’m a man of my word.” Beating his chest with his first, Jaehyun smirks. “Plus, it’s not like a buzzcut’ll make me ugly or something.”

Vernon, in the seat in front of them, scoffs. It’s a grating sort of sound, but Jaehyun gets it. He _is_ being a fucking prick. “Nah. That’s just your _personality_ , Jung.”

“Yours is pretty rotten, too, Chwe.”

“Tell me something I _don’t_ know, Jaehyun.” Vernon is turned around in his chair now, grin taunting, though in a friendly sort of way that settles Jaehyun’s nerves. He’s waving a hand and laughing at Jungwoo’s expression. “Anyways, I would totally join you for the buzzcut, captain, but I look fucking ugly with one, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Sorry.”

“What stupid bet did Jung make this time?”

“Hey, Jae!”

“Wang. Hey, Seokmin,” Jaehyun says with a grin. “Heard about the new rule for your runs. That shit sucks, huh?”

Seokmin is shaking his head as he takes the desk behind Jaehyun. His pleasant nature is an equalizer for Yibo’s straightforward manner of speaking, though Jaehyun recognizes that it doesn’t come from a bad place. “We don’t mind. It’s fair. If we can run shirtless and the girl’s team can’t run in their sports bras, there’s something unfair about that.”

“We’re trying to keep things fair,” Yibo says, choosing to lean against the back wall, “especially since some of our groups run together since their paces are similar.”

There’s something easy, Jaehyun thinks, about playing a sport that only includes men; though there’s also something inherently more problematic about it, the grounds for arguments that could be made on either side dangerous. Their community never approaches them to discuss them, but Jaehyun sees them on the internet, on the news, floating through social media. Jaehyun isn’t sure what he would do in the face of conflict, though, so he prays that the season ends without any.

All thoughts screech to a halt as the teacher finally walks in, the most refreshed that Jaehyun knows they’ll be the entire semester. Teenagers must be hard to work with, Jaehyun thinks, because he distinctly remembers that Mr. Zhang’s hair was a solid shade of black before the summer started. It’s now salt-and-pepper and while it isn’t that it looks _bad_ in Jaehyun’s opinion, it’s more a testament to the stress in his life.

That, or he dies it, though Jaehyun never read Mr. Zhang to be the vain sort. 

He relishes in the peace he receives as he’s separated from his friends, placed as far as possible from them, almost as if he were the catalyst for all displays of chaos. And he admits that, to an extent, he is. Jaehyun recognizes his ability to be as big of a shithead as the rest of his friends when bored in class, and the class of a teacher he respects is—unfortunately—no exception.

“Please pass your essays to the front of the class,” Mr. Zhang says. A resounding air of negativity sweeps the classroom as students rifle through their bags, procuring various lengths of essays. “Check to see that the Honor Code is signed on the first or last—or both, I guess, if that’s what you want—before you hand them in.”

Resolute, Jaehyun signs the Honor Code with a flourish before handing it forward. Maybe this class _won’t_ suck as bad as all the upperclassmen said it would.

* * *

There are several hours, after dinner, that Jaehyun can find some sort of peace in the house. His father is tucked away in his office, his mother at a meeting, and Donghyuck and Jaehyun are holed up in the living room doing homework. It’s not silent by any means. Their house is full of life—something that Jaehyun is increasingly thankful for as he grows.

He always figured that he would search, desperately, for some sort of peace as he grew into himself. Rather, Jaehyun searches for a developed sign of life that thrums with the barest hints of chaos, restrained by order. It makes more sense as a feeling rather than a statement, and Jaehyun tries not to think about it too much.

Jaehyun can hear the questions that rocket around in Donghyuck’s head as he pretends to work, feet kicking in unrest in the air. If he had less self-restraint, Jaehyun would ask Donghyuck what’s going on in his mind. And he _knows_ his little brother. The moment their focus is fully derailed, their productivity for the night will be shot. Jaehyun wants to _at least_ finish this chapter of the book he was assigned.

It’s mildly interesting, which is a sort of gift, he thinks.

As with anything, however, the thrum of peace disappears after a while.

“Hey, Jae?”

“Yeah, Hyuck?”

“Did you know that Mark Lee has a younger brother?” Donghyuck asks, kicking his feet in the air. Jaehyun tries his hardest not to seem interested, pretending to focus on the book in his hands. “Jae. I _know_ you’re listening to me.”

Raising his eyes, he meets his little brother’s gaze. “Yes, Hyuck, I’m listening. What about Mark Lee?”

“I _said_ that he has a little brother. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me,” says Donghyuck, pushing himself into a sitting position. His Korean School textbooks are forgotten on the floor as he crosses his legs, leaning forward on his arms. His elbows dig into his legs as his eyes light up. “His name is Jeno! He’s a pretty cool kid. I have Social Studies with him.”

“And how did you figure this out, Hyuck?”

“The teachers gossip, you know.” Tracing figures on his legs, Donghyuck frowns. “They think they’re being secretive, but they’re louder than they think. Jeno hears everything they say about his brother. And they’re not saying very nice things, either. It must make him sad.”

Sighing deeply, Jaehyun closes his book. It’s uncomfortable, sliding down the couch to curl up into a ball on the floor. He reaches out to pat Donghyuck on the head. His brother’s a saint, really. “You’re a good kid, Hyuck. But Mark hasn’t lived with them in a long time.”

“So?” Donghyuck puffs out his cheeks and furrows his brows. It’s somewhat fascinating as his body curls in on itself even further. “You could move out and you’d still be my brother. Plus, Jeno still cares about him! I can tell, because he gets all sad when he hears someone talk bad about Mark.”

“Are you sure it’s sadness? And not shame?”

The response Jaehyun receives is a mix of shock and disgust before Donghyuck is shaking his head vigorously. “I _know_ what that would look like. And he doesn’t have any reason to be ashamed of his brother.”

“His brother is a…,” and Jaehyun falters for a moment, pushing the image of Mark Lee from his head, “bad person, Hyuck.”

“How do you _know_ that, though, Jae? Do you know him personally? You can’t just _say_ that.”

He can’t help but be taken aback at his brother’s inherent need to defend this stranger who brings with him a terrible reputation. And Donghyuck is right, anyways. What does Jaehyun know?


	2. A Flash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The present is something of a gift, given how many times Mark has fucked himself over.

Nothing happens in small, dying towns. Mark looks for trouble to find excitement. He’s desperate to find something that will bring his blood to life. If this were anywhere else, he thinks, this would lead to trouble; a downwards slope with no end. Here it’s an activity that offers an escape and freedom and openness. It’s a singular window to the world outside of this prison he’s sequestered his soul to.

The summer heat dies and with it dies Mark’s flash of rebellion. It’s temporary, really; a by-product of Mark’s preference to admire fall and winter from inside insulated buildings. It’s amusing to everyone but him as he wraps himself in layers and layers and layers of clothing. There’s not much else he can do, though, with a closet designed for the spring and summer.

He’s a child of warmth—of the sun and everything bright. Perhaps that’s the irony with where he is, stepping back; stumbling on the train tracks, arms waving to regain balance. His tags are becoming cleaner and flowing nicer. And perhaps tags are too kind of a word to give these physical manifestations of his frustrations and misgivings and the fact that he’s privileged enough to walk away from this unscathed.

Mark festers in privilege that he tugs on until it falls into his hands. He knows this. The ugliness in his chest doesn’t stop him. If anything, it goads him on—pushing him to test how far he can push his bullshit. It’s easy for him to ignore the disapproving stares of the people around him. Long ago he learned to tune them out and live life as messily as he wishes.

It’s selfish of him, and to reign in the chaos in his chest is something that Mark works on. He’s a walking contradiction of sorts: a man who is entrenched in his own mess and who attempts to climb out of it in moments of clarity.

Moments of clarity where Mark realizes he will never be able to take back the worst words he has ever said; he will never be able to erase the most terrible things he has done. These are facts that Mark has tricked himself into believing are absorbed into his being; that his conscience are not actively trying to expel them and bring them back to the surface where they can breathe and grow until he cannot ignore them.

Mark is a mess, put simply.

In his pocket, his phone rings. It’s annoying, pulling it out of his pocket and squinting at the small screen before he flips it open.

“Hey.”

“ _Don’t fucking,_ Hey _, me, Mark Lee. Get in the fucking car._ ”

“Aw, fucking hell… Are you fucking serious?”

Dropping his can into his backpack, he spins on his heel to see Yuta standing there, arms crossed. Mark should’ve known that it was too good to be true. His instinct screams at him to move slowly—to test how far he can push them. Yuta’s approaching figure, however, activates his fight-or-flight response, and he’s scrambling, now, to throw his shit into his backpack and meet Yuta at least half-way.

“That’s right. You better fucking haul ass before I get over there!” shouts Yuta.

“Who called you guys?” groans Mark into the phone.

“ _Mr. Lee saw you leave and called us_ ,” chirps Taeyong’s voice through the phone. It sounds farther and Mark groans, again, resisting the urge to hold his head in his hand. “ _You should know by now that you shouldn’t fuck around like this, Mark. We let you stay home under the pretense that you were studying_.”

“Hurry the fuck up!” Yuta shouts.

“Fuck! Okay!” yells Mark, snapping his phone shut. “Fucking hell!”

“Don’t talk back to me!”

He tosses his bag onto his shoulder, stomping over to Yuta. Mark is greeted roughly, Yuta grabbing him by the arm and pulling him along; up the steps and through the abandoned train station. He’s stumbling and tripping and struggling to keep up, but Mark thinks that he deserves this; that he should stop testing their trust.

That doesn’t mean he’ll stop.

Cramped into the back of the car, shoulder pressed against the door, Mark thinks that, what would have felt like a prison in the past, feels safe. He should stop testing them, he thinks before this starts to feel like a punishment rather than a place to rest his head.

“So.”

“I know I fucked up,” grumbles Mark, cheek pressed against the window.

“Then why’d you do it anyways?” Johnny grits out, jaw tight. “You know this pisses us off, Mark.”

“I know.”

Turning around in his seat, Taeyong’s brow furrows. He seems to hesitate for a moment before speaking. “Did you do _any_ studying today, Mark? We made the deal that you could stay home tonight instead of working at the library while we were out with the understanding that you would be studying.”

“The textbooks are outdated, anyways,” mutters Mark.

“Yeah, well, we don’t really have the fucking means to get you the most recent ones, and the ones you can find online for free are only so good, Mark,” Yuta bites out, turning in his seat. “Please, just work with us on this.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.” Johnny’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “If you were sorry, you’d stop being an insufferable asshole.”

The truth, Mark thinks, hurts.

* * *

There’s the smallest bounce in Jeno’s step as he walks towards the entrance to the library. It’s something that Mark wishes he could emulate as he drags his feet the closer they get. This is what he deserves, though, for disobeying. For breaking trust.

Across the street, Johnny sits in the car, waiting for them to walk inside. And Mark knows that he’ll wait a little longer than that, too. That Johnny will walk into the library a few times throughout the day to make sure that Mark is exactly where he’s supposed to be—exactly where he _said_ he would be. Mark had voided their trust and he is ready to accept the consequences of that.

“Mom made me a sandwich. You can have half of it if you get hungry,” Jeno says, walking through the front door. “It’s bologna and swiss cheese, though. I don’t know if you like that.”

“I’ll pass, little dude. Thanks, though,” murmurs Mark, reaching up to pat his younger brother on the head.

In a small town, the library dies. Somewhat. It’s not _dead_ , per say, but it’s dying, slowly, as children grow up and out and there’s no one repopulating the town, so there are no children to fill the spaces that were once occupied. Mark doesn’t mind it—the free computer access and the free-but-password-protected Wi-Fi, and the ability to check out books without any consequences.

This is the place that Mark could reach a new future in if he utilizes the resources properly.

“Oh!” It’s the smallest of sounds, and Mark quickens his pace to follow his brother; weaving between tables and swearing loudly as his hip catches the corner of one. The librarian shushes him and Mark’s argument dies on his tongue as Jeno whirls around to hold up a finger.

“Sorry.”

“Be more careful,” replies Jeno, pulling two extra chairs behind him. The table he wanders towards is already occupied with three bodies, though one face is unfamiliar. Someone who Mark can’t recognize. “Hey! I hope it’s okay that I invited my brother.”

“It’s always okay,” Renjun says, shaking his head. “He’s your _brother_. You let me invite _my_ brother.”

“What did you do to get sequestered to the library?” asks Kunhang, shit-eating grin a silent taunt to accompany his question.

Mark doesn’t want to answer him—would rather that this new face not know the extent of his fucking mistakes, but he figures that he probably knows, anyways, or he’ll hear about them from his parents when word finally gets around that Mark Lee was in the library again, up to no good. He thinks that the line between good and bad is blurry and irrelevant, but he’s not the one who gets to make that standard in this town.

It’s the parents and their opinions, that do. So Mark tells Kunhang that he fucked up—that Johnny and Taeyong and Yuta caught him tagging some trains that sat at the abandoned station; the ones that hadn’t moved for several days. And Kunhang swallows his laughter behind his hand, eyes lit up. Jeno, somewhere in the middle, wanders away, a singular book on the mind.

“That’s what you fuckin’ get,” Kunhang says, waving his hand in Mark’s direction, “for not following the rules. I get you wanna break ‘em or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that you’ve gotta stop.”

Mark’s ignorance is a facade, and he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes in favor of arguing back. The librarian is glaring at them from her desk, and Mark would rather that he walk up to them and tell them to shut the fuck up instead of just staring. But this town is too polite for that—they prefer to whisper behind their hands and avert their eyes when Mark challenges them.

Amongst the rows and rows of bookshelves, Jeno’s humming floats over, a reminder that Mark isn’t completely alone today. And he knows that word will get around. His parents will figure out that they spent time together again, and Mark will have to field phone call after phone call telling him to stay away from their son. And it’ll sting and burn and remind Mark that he reaps what he sows and if what he sows is disobedience, what he’s reaping will be abandonment.

It’s a sharp outcome, and Mark fields it with a measure of discomfort, a measure of familiarity.

“It’s not that simple,” is the most that Mark can manage, blinking bleary eyes.

“It _is_ that simple, though,” chirps Donghyuck Jung. An unfamiliar face, though one that seems to brighten Jeno’s quiet countenance. Mark feels a tinge of familiarity, though it festers for only a moment. “You’re just like my brother. You don’t listen to yourself enough.”

“I listen to myself plenty,” Mark picks up his pen, “seeing as that’s what got me in this situation in the first place.”

“And it’s what could get you out, too.”

“What’re you? A fuckin’ shrink?” bites Mark.

“No, but have you considered counseling?” Donghyuck asks, leaning forward. “I say this genuinely. It’s a good resource you know, for when you’re troubled.”

“I’m not fuckin’ _troubled_.”

Donghyuck’s gaze is unimpressed as he turns his gaze back to his workbook. It’s a look of disbelief, and Mark gets it. He _knows_ that he’s troubled and that there’s shit in his brain he needs to figure out sooner than later, but the concept of pulling himself to where he needs to go is a fucking nightmare and a half to navigate through. His mind is a mess and there’s really not the clearest of paths to freedom.

Or clarity, at least.

“Why are we arguing?” asks Jeno, sitting down in his chair. He fixes his older brother with a stare that mark is reluctant to return. “Are you arguing with them again?”

“I’m not _arguing_ ,” Mark explains. “I’m just…”

“He’s arguing,” interjects Renjun with a roll of his eyes. “He’s _always_ arguing with us. When _doesn’t_ he argue with us? It’s like it’s in his DNA or something. And it’s like it skipped you.”

“Well,” Jeno says, after a bout of silence, “our dad is pretty argumentative. It could be.”

Mark reaches out to ruffle his brother’s hair before turning his attention back to the book in front of him, messy scrawl crossing page after page of a notebook that’s falling apart. There are very few things he would do for others. For his little brother, though? Mark thinks that he would do anything.

* * *

“When do you think you’ll take them?” Yuta asks as he pours a cup of coffee. Mark acknowledges him with a noncommittal grunt as he tosses his body into a chair. “Mark.”

“Take _what_?”

Through the morning haze, Mark can barely understand Yuta, who shakes his head in his peripheral vision. Five minutes. Mark has been conscious for _five_ minutes, and Yuta is already hitting him with questions that he isn’t sure he’s ready to answer. That he can’t even parse apart into coherent thoughts. A question requires listening, that Mark isn’t ready for, and thought, that he _definitely_ isn’t ready for.

His mind is a fucking swirl of a mess, and Mark thinks that it seems to take longer and longer to bring it to life every morning.

“The GEDs. The General Education Development exams,” offers Johnny, albeit unhelpfully, from his room down the small hallway. Below them, Mark can already hear Mr. Lee’s business thrumming with the beginnings of the day. “You know, the things you’ve been studying for?”

“I’unno,” Mark grumbles. “I still needa save up for them. They’re, like, a hundred-twenty to take.”

“ _Each_?” shouts Taeyong, wiping his hands on a towel. “ _Each_ subject test is over a hundred?”

“No, no.” Squirming, Mark does his best to push himself into a sitting position. “It’s, like, a hundred-twenty total. But, like, that’s a whole lotta fuckin’ cash to take a couple of exams. It’d be a waste for me to take them when I’m not ready. And I only have, like, eighty bucks saved up.”

Appearing in his vision, Johnny has his hands on his hips as he speaks. “You’d have more if you didn’t spend all your cash on spray paint.”

“I _get it_. I gotta stop.”

“It would also be pretty bad if the cops decide to arrest you one of these days, too, you know,” Yuta says, placing a cup of coffee in front of Mark. “They could book you on trespassing _and_ destruction of property. And probably a few more things. Like those cigs you keep toting around, and the shooters that I _know_ you stole from me last month. You’re not as slick as you think you are, you know.”

Rather than reply, Mark reaches out, hands wrapping around his mug. It’s warm, and it thaws the rest of Mark’s mood, mellowing him as he takes his first step. “I know I’m not.”

“We let him get away with it, too,” sighs Taeyong, sliding into the chair beside Mark. “We should be harder on him if we wanna help him kick these habits. They’re what got us in trouble, anyways.”

“And got you out of trouble, too,” Mark supplies, albeit unhelpfully. “But I’m, like, trying. Or I wanna try. Those are two different things. This kid Jeno’s friends with told me maybe I should see a therapist.”

“That’s not a terrible idea, you know,” says Johnny, sighing tiredly. “We could all use a therapist, though, to be honest, and they’re expensive as fuck. And we’d have to drive an hour or two out to their offices.”

“You’ve considered this.”

Yuta’s words aren’t a question, more an observation, verified by Johnny’s nod. And he’s right. They all should see a therapist, and Mark knows that it’s less a _should_ and more a need, but it’s not like it’s an easy thing to get access to. Therapy is something reserved for those that can afford it and they, Mark thinks, aren’t lucky enough to fall within that socioeconomic class. He wishes that they were; thinks that it might solve some of the fucked up shit rattling around in his head.

All their heads. They’re all a little fucked up, and Mark just thinks that he might be the most fucked up of them all. But he’s a work in progress, and he knows that this degree is part of the way to a future where he can figure it all out. When he passes the GED, he thinks, he can move on to university—further his education and prime himself for a degree where he’ll make enough money to get all of them out.

It’s a pipe dream, really, and he acknowledges that. Mark knows that, when it comes to it, he might have to save himself. The idea kills him inside, but he knows that this world is a matter of protecting yourself. If given the opportunity, though, he thinks that he’d like to save them all.

“Of course I have,” Johnny says, picking up his mug. He stares at it, contemplative, before nodding. “When Mark goes off to university, the school will have those services for him. It’s us that I’m more worried about. Once Mr. Lee hires us full time, I think our health insurance will be… better. Not great, but better. And it might make the burden a little less.”

“We have a future,” murmurs Yuta, placing his hand on top of Mark’s head.

His touch is soothing, and Mark leans into it. If it were up to him, Mark thinks he would stay here forever. It isn’t, though. He knows that. Mark, he thinks, isn’t allowed to get what he wants. One day, perhaps. One day, perhaps not. They have a future, and the most he can hope for is that they all remain together in some way, shape, or form.

“Mark does have a heart,” Johnny teases with a smile. It lightens the mood, just enough, that Mark thinks that he can breathe easier. And it’s just for the moment, but he’s grateful for their ability to read the mood and lift it when Mark is burying himself into it.

“Fuck off,” says Mark with a grin. Pushing back from the table, he reaches out to grasp Yuta’s arm. “Let’s make pancakes. I’m fuckin’ hungry.”

* * *

It’s hot and suffocating in the car as Mark drops his body into the passenger seat. His finger presses down on the button to lower the window, though it does nothing without the key in the ignition. He’s desperate for a breath of fresh air as he watches Taeyong take his sweet time, pulling open the door and hanging his legs out the car as he turns the key in the ignition.

They sit like that for a while, a breeze traveling through the open door and window. The silence is comforting, and Mark pulls the seatbelt across his body as Taeyong slams his door shut, double-checking that it closed properly before buckling himself in.

“Where are we going?” Mark asks.

“Somewhere.”

It’s an ambiguous answer, but good enough for Mark, who nods. Turning down the music, he gazes out the window as they drive through town. It’s never a long trip—at most it takes them twenty minutes to get anywhere in town. The air flowing across his face is a welcome reprieve from the end of summer heat. As they descend into September and the town begins to fall empty during the day as students disappear into the school buildings, Mark feels that he can stretch his proverbial wings again.

Freedom is nice, though, even if it’s fake.

“You seem happy,” Taeyong says, hands gripping the steering wheel. He’s hesitant to look away from the road, and Mark appreciates it, though the roads are absolutely empty. “Glad school started back up?”

“Yeah.”

“You would’ve been off to university, yeah?”

Mark presses his cheek to the door of the car, listening to the humming of the engine and the radio, which only ever seems to play a singular radio station. The top fifty of the week always seem to be months behind the rest of the country, from what Mark can gather from the few—many—times his attention strays during his study sessions.

If he had followed the path he was originally given, Mark would be hours away, holed up in a dorm room with a stranger, learning new things about both himself and the world. Mark, however, has fallen so far from that journey, that it’s something of a pipedream at that point. Not that he’s complaining.

“Sort of. Next year, I guess. But I also skipped the cut off. So, yeah,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “If it were up to my parents, I would’ve been somewhere studying medicine.”

Conversation, he thinks, is okay with burying itself in the proverbial ground and disappearing. The drive isn’t far, though Mark recognizes the way that Taeyong winds through neighborhoods, crossing through town on the longest route possible. He’s not actually sure where they’re going, or why, but he’d never turn down a ride to occupy his time.

Logically speaking, Mark’s life has been a series of fuck-ups of his own creation. He’s not sure where exactly he decided that he was unhappy and smothered, and willing to throw everything away. It’s a mental trip he’s not open to taking at the moment.

“Are you glad you didn’t do that?”

Pushing away from the door, Mark nods. He risked a lot, but he thinks that he would’ve been miserable in that life. “Very glad. I think I’m better where I am now.”

“Better?” Taeyong asks, brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

“I’m happier. I don’t feel,” Mark waves a hand, “suffocated. Not as much, anymore. I have different worries now.”

“Like what?”

“It’s still about the future,” says Mark, leaning backwards, closing his eyes, “but it’s different now. It’s a different worry about the future.”

Taeyong stops the car at an intersection, turning to face Mark. “What are your worries about the future, Mark?”

“Where I go from here. What the fuck I’m doing with my life. Like, I’m a fucking high school dropout who works under the table for a business in a dying town. The future is a worry, but I want us to escape this place.”

“Us?”

Mark nods, cracking an eye open to look at Taeyong. His hand flops in the air as he hums, deep in thought. “You, me, Yuta, and Johnny. I want to get us out of this town. We’re dying, slowly, here. And I think we can really thrive if we can leave this place.”

Taeyong is smiling as he pulls away, turning left through the intersection. Around them, the town sleeps as the sun rises. Everything can fall apart around him, and Mark thinks that he will find solid ground beneath his feet with the others by his side.

* * *

“Disgusting,” Mark mutters, hands shoved into his pockets. “I can’t believe I’m at a fucking school event. Why the fuck are we here?”

Yuta is shouldering him as he presses a small ticket into the breast pocket of his flannel. He’s not gratified a response, left to follow Yuta and Johnny and Taeyong through the throng of townspeople and students. It’s loud and it’s active and it’s the exact opposite of where Mark wants to be.

And Mark _knows_ why he’s here. He knows why they’re _all_ here. It’s a _thing_. It’s Yuta’s desperate push to keep them in-tune with the happenings of the town—integrate them and keep them involved with the world they live in. Mark doesn’t feel that it’s necessary to try to reach out to a population that abhors their very existence. In the distance, he can see Jeno perched on the bleachers, settled comfortably between Renjun and Donghyuck. There’s a third unfamiliar face, though Mark’s sitting on the other side of the field before he can give it much thought.

“The quarterback, Jaehyun Jung, is the son of that man whose air conditioning we fixed a few weeks ago,” Taeyong explains, waving a hand towards the field. “You know, the kid who gave us Gatorade and you treated like shit.”

Rolling through his memories, Mark offers a half-hearted shrug when he realizes he has no fucking clue what Taeyong is talking about. Particularly since he tends to treat every stranger like shit. It’s a habit that he knows he needs to break.

“Right. That narrows it down,” Mark mutters, crossing his ankles. “Thanks.”

“Arms,” supplies Johnny, bluntly.

“Oh.” Sitting up, Mark nods. “Arms.”

“ _Arms_?” asks Yuta, turning towards Mark, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean by _arms_?”

There’s a moment where Mark debates strangling Johnny and ending him before he can say anything. He has a second to make the decision, hands curling into fists as Johnny smiles in his direction. It’s not that he told Johnny that he thought that Gatorade boy’s arms were nice in confidence. If anything, it was a passing comment—innocent enough at the time, he thinks.

Besides, Gatorade boy has a future, if everyone shouting his name is any sort of indication.

“Say anything, and I’ll shove my spray paint into the exhaust pipes of your fucking car,” hisses Mark, eyes narrowing.

“Lips are sealed. Sorry boys,” Johnny says, hands held in the air. “I love my car too much to snitch.”

“ _Weak_ ,” Taeyong is muttering under his breath. The hot chocolate in his hand steams as he pulls the cover off to drink from it.

Before them, the game moves without their attention. Mark doesn’t even know the rules—can’t even pretend. He listens to the crowd cheer as the home team scores—boo as the opponent adds points to their total. Even in the life he lived before the one he began on his own, sports were never his focus.

Perhaps in another life Mark was interested. Perhaps in another life, Mark was playing on a sports team in some far-off state. He’s happy and his parents don’t want to fucking strangle him the moment they see him, and he’s allowed to spend time with Jeno without worry about other people in town snitching on him. He knows, though, that all those things are a fucking pipe dream, though, and that he shouldn’t even waste time considering those sorts of outcomes.

He can think of another life all he wants, but it means nothing when he’s living the one he was given.

Football is the sort of sport that Mark thinks he could’ve been into—that he would have tossed himself into. That he would have excelled at. Blinking, Mark steels himself. There’s no use in thinking about things that could never happen. Around him, Taeyong, Johnny, and Yuta cheer for people they’ve only met in passing. The children of parents who pin them with looks of disgust as they walk by.

Mark wonders how to enter that sort of headspace. He wonders how he can become a person who doesn’t worry about what others think.

Before he can allow his mind to wander too far, the clock is buzzing, and people on the colorful bleachers across from them are screaming their heads off in celebration. Mark doesn’t remember the game being half-way through, and he doesn’t know if he cares that he missed it. On the field, the players crowd who Mark assumes is the captain, lifting him high into the air. It’s just one game, so Mark doesn’t really see the point of celebrating so raucously. Instead, he follows behind Johnny, hesitant to allow his gaze to travel to the field one last time.

It feels like a fucked up sort of fairy tale when he makes eye contact with Jaehyun. Nothing becomes slow motion, but Mark feels his heart skip for the briefest of seconds.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, turning his head away. _Fuck me_.


	3. Transverse Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is dissonance in his existence. Jaehyun chases after this brokenness; seeks to thrive in it.

There is _nothing better_ , Jaehyun ascertains, than a win for the first home game. It sets a sort of precedent, raising expectations, but also morale. As stupid as it may sound, a big win is really fucking important—particularly at the humiliating loss last season ended on. Which is why, as overdramatic as it may be, Jaehyun doesn’t particularly mind being hoisted into the air by his teammates; he doesn’t particularly mind the obnoxious cheering coming from the bleachers.

From where he sits, Jaehyun thinks he might be invincible. And he knows that it’s an exaggeration and an overestimation of his capabilities—that starting themselves with high expectations might simply mean a harder fall from high up. Jungwoo shouts, voice overcoming those that are louder, simply by virtue of Jaehyun knowing it much better.

“Hell yeah, boys!” Jaehyun shouts, pulling his helmet off. “Let’s start the year right!”

It’s satisfying, staring out over the crowd and seeing the familiar faces shouting their names—cheering for their team. Jaehyun thinks that the only thing that could be better than this feeling is the one he’ll get playing for a team in university. That dream, however, isn’t far off, and Jaehyun thinks of all the emails from coaches and letters and applications he’s filling out. He never thought a small-town kid could do it. No one did, really, and yet here Jaehyun is, succeeding in ways beyond expectation.

For a moment, he allows his gaze to trail out over the crowd for the opposing team. While a virtuous boy at heart, Jaehyun can admit there’s a degree of satisfaction to seeing the discouraged faces of fans who didn’t want their win. He doesn’t, however, expect to see the face of the men who he had pushed to the back of his mind.

_Mark Lee_ , Donghyuck had told him, _isn’t as bad as you think he is._

Jaehyun isn’t sure what to believe anymore, though the smile that spreads across Mark Lee’s face when he looks over is fucking sentencing. He doesn’t want to sound delusional, but he likes to think that Mark Lee smiled because of him. The delusion breaks as he’s dropped back down to his feet, the coach clapping him on the back as they begin the walk back to the locker room.

The talk in the locker room sails over his head as he sits there, leaning back against the lockers, shouting along when needed. He _knows_ that he should be listening, but Mark Lee is something like a bug that Jaehyun’s brain can’t get rid of once he’s there. There’s another game next week, and his mind should already be there—thinking about how it went last year, realizing that there are ways to prepare.

His parents aren’t waiting for him by the time the meeting finishes. They haven’t waited for him, he thinks, since he was sixteen and started his first game as quarterback. There’s no need to wait for him anymore, he supposes, seeing as he has a car that can get him place to place. Donghyuck, however, is waiting for him as Jaehyun finally walks out, body washed to the best of his ability in the shitty school showers.

“Jae!”

“Hey, Hyuck,” Jaehyun says with a laugh, fondly ruffling his brother’s hair. “How was the game?”

“Fucking _awesome_ as always.”

“Language,” warns Jaehyun, brow furrowing.

Waving a hand, Donghyuck grins. He runs away for a moment before returning with two people linked to his arms, one in tow. “This is Jeno,” he shakes one arm, “and Renjun! And that’s Jaemin! Can you drive us to get some snacks?”

“Do your parents know about this?” Jaehyun asks, making eye contact with each of them before looking back at Donghyuck. No one looks sheepish, though none of them appear to be willing to speak. With a sigh, Jaehyun unlocks his car. “Get in. We’ll stop by the 7/11 that’s on the way home.”

“That one _sucks_ ,” whines Donghyuck, plopping into the passenger seat. “Can’t you drive to WalMart? It’s still open! It’s open for a whole _hour_!”

“That’s thirty minutes away, Hyuck… It’s 7/11 or nothing,” Jaehyun replies, voice firm. He knows his younger brother has conceded from the way he slouches in the seat. “Seat belts, or we’re not going anywhere.”

Once he’s sure everyone has buckled in, Jaehyun feels content to pull away from his parking spot, the familiar thrum of his car comforting in his hands. Driving is a different sort of calm from the one he feels on the field. There’s no surrounding aura of tension or stakes that Jaehyun didn’t even know he was making. Of course, with driving comes risks, though they are risks that are, for the most part, in his control.

In the passenger seat, Donghyuck plays with the radio, though he keeps the music soft to listen to his friends who sit in the back seat. And Jaehyun is more than happy to stay silent and let their conversations fill the car. His chest puffs out slightly when they compliment his playing and recall how fun the game was, though he listens most carefully when Donghyuck mentions Mark.

“Your brother was at the game, right?” he asks, turning in the seat.

“Yeah,” replies Jeno, fiddling with his fingers, “though he and John and everyone sat across the field. People would say something if he came to sit with us. Mark did say, though, that he’s glad I’ve made friends. He was always worried about me.” Jeno wrinkles his nose with a shake of his head, and Renjun barks out a laugh that he pairs with a good-natured jab.

Jaemin scoffs, shaking his head. “You’re a good kid. People should keep their mouths shut.”

“Yeah, well,” and Jeno’s words remind Jaehyun of how small a world they all live in, “sometimes people don’t know better.

Jaehyun, on the empty street, stops before pulling a U-turn and saying, “Don’t _any_ of you dare to fucking tell our parents. We’re gonna make it to WalMart.”

In the back seat, Jeno lights up.

* * *

“Oh! Jeno is already here,” Donghyuck says, running towards the library. “Jeno! Mark!”

“Mark?” asks Jaehyun, locking his car. “What do you mean Mark?”

Donghyuck pauses, his smile wide. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waits for Jaehyun to catch up. “Yeah! Mark is studying for the GED,” whispers Donghyuck as if it’s a conspiracy, “so he can go to community college. Isn’t that awesome? He said his goal is to, like, transfer to a bigger university after a year or two.”

“Huh,” Jaehyun replies noncommittally, trailing after his brother.

Mark, for what it’s worth, looks positively fucking miserable, leaning against the library like someone’s pulled a rug out from under his feet and dragged him to the library against his will. Jaehyun figures that his assumption isn’t very far off, though he acquiesces that most people aren’t biting at the bit to get to the library when it opens.

“Are Jaemin and Renjun coming?” asks Donghyuck, pushing the door to the library open. “Or are they going to the town over again?”

Jeno offers the smallest of shrugs before trailing after Donghyuck. His voice is soft as he speaks, though it sounds like a shout in the library. “Jaemin said he’d bike over whenever he woke up, and Renjun said he’d try to ask his brother to drop him off.”

“Renjun has a brother?” Jaehyun’s voice is loud in the library, and he shrinks under the withering glare that the librarian sends him. “I mean,” he tries again, voice a loud whisper, “Renjun has a brother?”

“You _know_ him, Jae,” Donghyuck looks appalled, “because he’s a student athlete with you.”

Blinking, Jaehyun offers a shrug. It’s not like he knows much about the people he surrounds himself with, and he _basically_ met Renjun two days ago. The most he knows about the people he associates with in school is what they speak about in the spare minutes before class, and that’s never much if he thinks about it.

It grates Jungwoo’s nerves to a point, and Jaehyun has enough shame to feel bad about it, though he usually gets away with a pass, using his brother as a scapegoat. Donghyuck knows this, and has enough of a sense to not press Jaehyun to address why he avoids the people he should be close to, though Jaehyun feels his judging stare whenever Jungwoo calls and he makes another excuse.

“Sicheng? Sicheng from the swim team?” offers Donghyuck, eyes wide.

“He has a little brother?”

“And you called _me_ the stupid one?” Mark asks, having half a mind to look offended. “I at least have an excuse not to know these people.”

“You’re stupid in a… different way,” supplies Jeno gently, laughing at his brother’s disgruntled expression. “But, you really didn’t know?”

Sighing, Donghyuck begins to pull his Korean school books from his backpack. Jaehyun knows that he should be doing the same, though he’s less inclined to, preferring to pull his laptop from his backpack. Mark, eventually, disappears towards the computers, leaving behind his things without much hesitation.

“Jaehyun doesn’t really hang out with people outside of school anymore,” Donghyuck explains, waving his hand around, “so, he’s probably never seen Renjun’s house.”

“Oh? What happened?”

Grimacing, Jaehyun shakes his head. “I went to a party and the cops busted it. I got away without much of an issue, but after that my parents essentially put me on house arrest. I figured that it was just easier not to put myself in any sort of situation where that could happen again.”

The face Jeno makes reflects the horror that Jaehyun had felt when he woke up the next morning to his parents’ disapproving stares as they told him that they had decided on his punishment. In the grand scheme of things, he recognizes that the punishment could have been worse. Regardless, the fact that he disappointed his parents had twisted his gut and driven him into a proverbial corner. In an attempt to placate them, he had shoved everything away and told himself that there’s a time and place to fuck up, and here and now wasn’t it.

A goal dangles precariously in front of his face as he returns to the essay that he knows he should’ve finished last night, what with its due date staring him right in the face. It’s an easy one, though, and the book he pulls out of his backpack is heavily annotated, scribbles marking the pages, the school copy sitting beside it. Sticky notes hang out of that one, correlating pages between the two versions.

“Huh. You’re a good student, I guess?” Jeno asks, leaning forward to look at Jaehyun’s books.

“I try to be,” is Jaehyun’s reply. “Even if schools are scouting me, I have to prove that I can succeed academically.”

Snorting, Donghyuck looks up from his books with an unimpressed glance. “Jaehyun works really hard, but he’s already naturally smart. It’s annoying. He’s, like, good at everything basically. And he _still_ works hard, so he’s _extra_ good.”

“Nothing is natural and everything comes from hard work,” Jaehyun argues.

“You sound like my dad,” mutters Jeno, wrinkling his nose. “And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I mean, you’re nice! Don’t get me wrong. I just…”

His voice trails off as he looks towards the computers where Mark sits, expression the epitome of concentration. At that moment, Jaehyun gets it—figures that what he said was probably something their father told Mark before everything happened. They’re words that hold some degree of insensitivity that Jaehyun can’t see.

He wonders, though, if that means he’s become complacent in some sort of thing he didn’t even know existed. Jaehyun thinks that maybe Mark saw a sort of life that Jaehyun never even considered, shoved so far into the world that his parents had created for him that there was no way to visualize the outside reality.

“No, I get it,” Jaehyun says, shaking his head. “Some things, you’re right, just come naturally. Sometimes we can’t force ourselves.”

The tension in Jeno’s shoulders relax and, beside him, Donghyuck smiles. “Yeah,” murmurs Jeno, turning back to his book, “you’re right.”

* * *

Mark Lee is a plague, Jaehyun thinks. He’s dangerous in the way that he has a steady coexistence with the contents of Jaehyun’s mind. Regardless of where he is, or what he’s doing, Mark Lee is there. His face, his voice, his words. He’s impossible to get rid of, Jaehyun thinks, because before, when all Jaehyun would be given is the briefest of glimpses, Mark Lee is always there.

It’s a situation that’s out of control, and he feels stuck between a rock and a hard place. Donghyuck, it seems, has become attached at the hip to Jeno. And it’s caused a sort of fragmentation in the family, what with Jaehyun keeping mum as his father questions Donghyuck’s understanding of the town they live in. It’s a jab, not at all subtle, and Jaehyun watches as Donghyuck curls into himself further at home.

Donghyuck, in response, had told their father that he understood well enough.

Jaehyun believes his little brother, even if he still battles his internal prejudices. For what it’s worth—for what he can see—an outside perception of a deeply personal thing is always flawed. And there’s something satisfying about sitting in the silence of his own mind in a domain that his friends from school would never set foot into. It’s probably selfish of him to crave this secret place, though he can’t bring himself to care.

Mark Lee is an unintended barrier between Jaehyun and the world that he suddenly wishes to extricate himself from. It is a small town, with a small mind, and Mark, Jaehyun surmises, has always known that. His mind and heart and dreams are too big for a place that wishes to hold him down and break him until he conforms to what they want.

They succeeded, though only partially. The people had broken Mark’s dreams, though not his personality. Jaehyun isn’t sure if they would’ve gotten along. So much of his childhood memory is fragmented for no reason other than it’s _bad_. Jaehyun has never had much luck at remembering things; no trauma, just forgetfulness. It's a joke between him and his mother that Jaehyun lives his memories from an outside perspective. None of them, however, contain Mark.

The man is a plague for so many reasons, and Jaehyun fails to put his finger on just one.

“Do you,” asks Jaemin, leaning his head on his hand, “like, do anything here at the library _other than_ stare at Jeno’s brother? Not that I blame you or anything. He’s hot.”

“That’s disgusting,” Jeno interjects, wrinkling his nose. “He’s five years older than us.”

Donghyuck clears his throat as he shakes his head. He’s pointedly ignoring the argument that brews between Jeno and Jaemin, in favor of returning to the _original_ question, though it isn’t considerably better than the latter. “Jaehyun’s just running away from responsibility. You know that my brother actually does his homework on Fridays, right? After his football games he comes home and works before bed.”

Renjun squints before scoffing. There’s a silent insult there, and Jaehyun challenges him to vocalize it with a raised eyebrow. “You’re a freak of nature. Doing homework on a _Friday_? Who are you?”

“A diligent student, I guess,” Jaehyun offers unhelpfully, nursing his mental wound after the attack from Renjun. His reply is accompanied by a sniff as he ignores their subsequent conversation in favor of returning his attention to Mark Lee. He knows he must look _something_ negative from their responses—maybe like a kicked puppy, or a lost child. There’s some amount of soul searching that he’s been forced to do since he met Mark Lee. His edges are sharp, and Jaehyun often finds himself reeling backwards from their short exchanges.

He doesn’t mind, though. Not really, anyways. It’s not that Jaehyun is trying to poke holes into his defenses, or figure out what makes him tick. All Jaehyun wants is a sense of freedom. He thinks that Mark could give him that, and maybe more. And, sure, maybe it helps that Mark is hot as fuck, and Jaehyun wouldn’t complain if it went somewhere beyond friendship.

Jaehyun has his own demons and his own internal battles that he’s fighting, and there’s really no point in entangling himself in others’ when he can’t win his own. On the horizon are Jaehyun’s first rays of freedom, and he’s becoming greedy. There are still things to do here; tasks to accomplish and daily rituals to live out. He can’t help but want to stretch out his hand, though, and reach for things that he knows he wants.

And some of them are simple requests—like Jaehyun would like to be able to _breathe_ without fearing the consequences of upsetting those around him. It sounds easy enough, but when you live a life so dictated by others, it’s difficult to exist in the sunlight. There’s no room for him to stretch out and explore who he is. His parents gifted him a mold when he was born, and Jaehyun, as a dutiful son, fit it. They simply never expected him to _out_ grow it, he thinks.

They never expected Jaehyun’s heart to grow bigger, for his mind to grow kinder, for his soul to wish to search the corners of the universe for happiness that he is caged from in this town. Part of it, he thinks, could be rebellion. Another part of it, much larger if the sense of mutiny does exist in his heart, is his will to exist in a state that’s free of the confines of his gates.

Through the bookshelves, bathed in sunlight from the windows where the librarian refuses to close the shades, Mark Lee sits. And Jaehyun can really only see a sliver of him—it’s not enough to conceive the full context of the emotions that pass across his face. It’s enough though, Jaehyun thinks, for now.

* * *

It’s mechanical—ritualistic at this point—to pull into the library parking lot; roll up the windows that Donghyuck begged him to lower, turn off the car, and rummage through the backseat for his backpack. Today, however, there is no Renjun or Jaemin or Jeno hogging the space in the backseat as he closes the doors, locks the car, and looks to Donghyuck, who bounces excitedly on the balls of his feet.

“Hurry up! You’re really dragging your feet today, you know,” Donghyuck chides, frowning at his brother. He pauses for a brief second before turning away and heading towards the door without hesitation, footsteps sure and strong.

There’s no argument on Jaehyun’s tongue as he feels his body ache. A loss is difficult, he thinks, though less so when he realizes that he put all his cards on the table. There is still time in their season. The playoffs are still within their grasp. One, two losses mean nothing in the grand scheme of how things can go.

They can be the underdogs. They can win. That’s what Jaehyun tells himself every morning when he wakes up; every night before he goes to bed. It’s a shitty, stupid goal in the overarching timeline that is his life. And Jaehyun knows that. He’s desperate to untangle himself from the expectations that are not his, and form his own. It’s hard, though, he thinks, entering the library and scanning the finite number of shelves that feel so old and empty.

The librarian glances at him, once, twice, before returning to his phone, content to ignore Jaehyun’s existence. And he’s grateful for that; without the ignorance, he thinks, he would have long ago been prohibited from visiting the library. Donghyuck teeters on the edge, unafraid of their father and his words that can cut deep. He is protected by their mother while Jaehyun tries his best to stand alone.

He’s not bitter. There’s no bitterness. Underneath everything that culminates his existence, all Jaehyun can sense in himself is fear.

“No Jeno today?” Donghyuck asks, shuffling up to the table. Reaching out, there’s a small crackling sound as he zaps Mark with static electricity. There’s a noncommittal hum as Mark remains hunched over the hastily stapled stacks of paper in front of him. Jaehyun wants to ask—craves to ask why Mark is hiding his face. “Is Jeno sick?”

“The librarian ratted out to my parents that we come here on Saturdays so they’re forcing Jeno to stay home today,” answers Mark, shifting uneasily in his seat. His voice echoes against the table, too soft to bounce back to them with strength. His voice sounds weak. “She also pointed out that I’ve been using Jeno’s library card to use the computers, so I can’t use them today.”

“Did Johnny print you those?”

“Yeah.”

“Darn! So we just missed him?” Donghyuck is flopping into a chair as he sighs. “Shame.”

“All he does is drop me off and head to a job in town,” Mark mutters, shrugging. “But, yeah. You just missed him. It’s whatever, though. He’ll be back to pick me up. He doesn’t want me walking back tonight.”

“Why?”

Turning himself towards them fully, Mark pulls down his hood. A frown mars his face as he reaches up to push his hair from his forehead. “Said he doesn’t want this happening again.”

Jaehyun thinks that his jaw must be hanging in disbelief as he stares at Mark’s face. A bruise crawls across his cheek, fresh from the blues and purples and absences of yellows and greens. His lip is stitched close, though it looks like a backroom job, hasty and messy and without an art to it. There are scratches and cuts and Jaehyun wonders what kind of state the rest of Mark’s body must be in.

“What the fuck happened?” Jaehyun whispers. His hand screams for him to reach out and hold Mark’s face in his hands—delicately, gently, with care. Instead, they curl into fists by his sides. “Who did this?”

“Ask your boys,” bites Mark, eyes narrowing. “Ask them what they were up to last night after the game, drunk out of their fucking minds and stumbling home. Ask why the fuck they had to come after _me_ , when all I was doing was talking a walk to clear my head.”

“Who,” Jaehyun asks. And he’s proud of himself, the way his tone is level despite the storm raging in his head.

Sitting back, Mark shakes his head. There’s a nonchalance to his actions that make Jaehyun’s blood boil. “Don’t know, don’t care. This isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. You didn’t know before and knowing now won’t do anything, you know.” He waves his hand around before turning back to his papers.

Slamming his hands flat on the table, Jaehyun grits his teeth. There are two long, slow breaths, before he speaks with emphasis. He thinks that he must sound like his father when he speaks from the way Donghyuck shifts his feet in discomfort beside him. “ _Who did this_?”

“Why do you fuckin’ care?” Mark barks, standing up. The librarian stands at his seat and Mark pins him with a glare. “This has been goin’ on for _years_ now, and you suddenly care just because our brothers are friends? Fuck _off_ , Jung.”

They fall silent as Mark sits back down, slumping in his chair. Donghyuck grabs Jaehyun by the arm, pulling him to another table as he whispers, “Let’s sit somewhere else for today, Jae.”

For hours, Jaehyun can’t help but glance at Mark, his mind refusing to focus on anything but the state of his face. He doesn’t have to worry or investigate or take revenge for Mark. Jaehyun is sure that Mark would prefer he didn’t, really, though Jaehyun’s can’t help that, as the months stretch on, and September begins to fade into October, Mark Lee has become a part of his life, whether he likes it or not.

Whether _either_ of them like it or not.

* * *

Jaehyun could walk away if he _really_ wanted to. It’s not like he’s already knocked on the door; it’s not like the door has been answered; it’s not like he’s already sitting inside. Except he is. He’s sitting inside an unfamiliar apartment, surrounded by vaguely familiar people, in a situation he never thought he would find himself in. There’s no Mark, though, despite him being the whole reason that Jaehyun is here.

Yuta is humming into the kitchen as Taeyong fusses with the books stacked haphazardly on a table, and John sighs, head in his hands. There’s a certain degree of turmoil that Jaehyun assumes must constantly exist in this space. It thrums like electricity in the air, fusing with his blood the more he breathes it in.

That’s fine, though. He doesn’t mind. To some degree, Jaehyun wants to embrace it. He _does_ embrace it as John looks at him, looking considerably worse for the wear. There aren’t a considerable amount of years separating him from them, though to Jaehyun it feels like _decades_. The knowledge they hold in their gazes—the experiences they must have lived before Jaehyun had settled his mind upon them—is deep and rich and embroiled in panic and a sort of solace that Jaehyun wishes he could find.

“I’ll admit,” John says, pressing his palms against his knees, “I didn’t expect you to come visit us.”

“I want to know,” Jaehyun’s voice is firm, “who did that to Mark. Or if you can help me figure out where to start to go about figuring it out.”

“That’s really kind of you, Jaehyun,” murmurs Yuta, placing a plate of snacks on the center table, “but it won’t help the situation. We told Mark we won’t step in. The last time we did, the situation escalated, and there’s just not enough trust in this town to protect Mark.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Taeyong’s laugh is tinged with bitterness as he slides onto the couch. His sigh sounds like it holds the anguish of ten thousand years of solitude, and Jaehyun can’t wrap his head around the exhaustion in his motions. “When you live in a town, Jaehyun, that is _so_ fucking desperate to forget your existence, there’s no helping you.” He smooths down the wrinkling fabric on the arm of the chair.

“No one wants to help you,” adds Yuta, looking at John. “They’re desperate to sweep everything under the rug just to keep the status quo.”

“We’ve gone to the police, before, Jaehyun. And the school board. And the athletics board. We’ve done it all.” John shakes his head, standing as the door opens. “There’s nothing that we can do about this other than make sure they don’t find Mark again.”

Mark, in the doorway, looks worse than Jaehyun thinks he must feel. His face is black and blue and purple and green and yellow, with brick red scabs protecting healing wounds. There’s something devastatingly nauseating about the way he refuses to acknowledge Jaehyun, content to kick off his shoes and disappear into the kitchen.

There’s no loyalty between them—Jaehyun never expected there to be. The way that Mark brushes him off, so callously, though, rubs him the wrong way. He doesn’t realize that he’s standing in the kitchen doorway until Mark is gazing at him like a cornered animal.

“Come on,” Jaehyun says, jerking his head. “We’re going for a ride.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Do I _look_ like I’m fucking kidding, Mark Lee?”

There’s hesitance. Mark can decline—he can scoff at Jaehyun and walk away without blinking an eye. There are thousands of outcomes, and Jaehyun only wants one that he isn’t sure Mark wants to give him. In the living room, John, Yuta, and Taeyong speak in low voices that grow in volume as it becomes accompanied by laughter. There is, above the tension, a sort of stable happiness that Jaehyun craves.

“Okay,” says Mark, voice soft. “Okay, okay.”


	4. Lost Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is distrust and some sort of resolution with a shaky outcome. They're not the same.

One thing that Mark has learned while growing up—one rule that he is determined to follow—is when to fight back. The answer, in this small town, is quite possibly never. To an extent, he is allowed to bend the rules; perhaps even break some. Fighting back is one of the few things, however, that he struggles to justify. There are three people who stand behind him. While to him they’re enough, three people can’t match the ferocity of a pack mentality.

It’s pack shit—dumb shit that Mark stares at in disgust, but can’t do anything about because he doesn’t have the means. There’s no way for him to overcome the power of hundreds when they’re only four men weak. It’s fucked up when he really thinks about it, so he tries not to.

Mark’s gotten good at ignoring all the noise in his brain and living life to the best of his ability, even if it’s pretty mediocre at best.

His limbs feel heavy when he wakes up, though he realizes that it’s less to do with the bruises that litter his body and more to do with Yuta’s weight on top of him as he urges him to wake up.

“Fuck, okay,” Mark shouts, shoving Yuta off, “I’m fucking awake!”

“Now you are,” supplies Yuta unhelpfully, scrambling to his feet. Holding out a large envelope, Yuta waves it a few times in his direction. “Johnny needs you to go drop this off at the post office.”

“Can’t he do it himself? Or you? Or Taeyong? Like, why the _fuck_ does it have to be me?”

Nodding no, Yuta places it on Mark’s bed before opening his door. “No can do, champ. We’re working the front desk for Mr. Lee since he and his wife are out of town visiting their kids.”

“Fine!” Mark groans, kicking around before rolling out of bed. “Fine, I’ll fuckin’ deliver this to the post office. Fuck.”

Mornings are a blur, Mark thinks, standing on the cheap carpet. The cold of October seeps into his body through his feet as he stares at himself in the mirror. His bruise, for what it’s worth, doesn’t look as bad as it did, though scratches and cuts and busted lips are never pretty. Fingers, hesitant, press against the bruise before falling back to his side, hood rising to hide his face.

The people of this town know him, Mark thinks, shuffling through the quiet October morning. Or they think they do, anyways. Mark isn’t sure that they can know him when he doesn’t understand himself. There is a storm brewing in Mark’s mind, and it’s something difficult to untangle. It feels heavy in his head, dragging it down to his chest as he walks, envelope tucked under his arm. People, as he walks by, mutter under their breath—of what a shame he is, of what a disappointment he is, of how he’s a waste of space.

In the distance, Mark can see the post office. And there’s not much he needs to do. The drop boxes sit on the sidewalk, empty and lonely looking. He doesn’t like drawing parallels between him and inanimate objects, but Mark thinks that he’d be like that if he hadn’t broken free of the expectations people had set for him. There were consequences that continue to pervade through his life to this very moment, though Mark doesn’t particularly mind.

And that’s a bit of a lie. Mark, to a degree, does mind. If he’s honest with himself, which he rarely is, he misses his family. It’s crushing, the way people whisper amongst themselves—say not-so-silent prayers that Jeno doesn’t end up like him; the way that people echo the worries of his parents and inform them when Jeno is with him. If Mark weren’t so stubborn, he would have broken down and given in to the demands of society. Unfortunately, he thinks, he isn’t so easy to be broken.

“Wow. Showing your face in town during the day, huh?”

Turning towards the voice, Mark narrows his eyes. The face isn’t familiar, though Mark figures that his must be to everyone else around him. “And who the _fuck_ are you?”

“Why should I tell you?”

Mark rolls his eyes in response, refusing to gratify him with a response. Instead, he deposits the envelope into the drop box before walking away. “At least I had the fucking balls to drop outta high school instead of playing hooky like a fucking bitch.”

“What’d you say?”

“You fuckin’ heard me,” Mark shouts over his shoulder, waving a hand. Around them, people begin to gather, stepping out of stores to witness Mark’s temper. “If you had fuckin’ balls you’d drop out like you clearly wanna do, seeing as you’re skipping school. But, you know, I’m the fuck up here, right? Just because I didn’t pretend to listen to mommy and daddy.”

“You’re gonna fucking regret that, Lee.”

“Yeah, yeah. Make me eat my words or whatever.”

One week later, he does.

* * *

“Get in.”

Mark stares warily at the car. It feels something like a trap. In fact, he’s sure that it’s a trap. Jaehyun’s expression is severe, though the edges are soft, like he’s not here to corner Mark. It’s a red herring, and Mark knows that there’s no escape once he sits down. He slides into the passenger seat anyways, closing the door and staring back at Jaehyun, who stares at him with some sort of expectation in his expression.

“What?”

“Seatbelt,” is Jaehyun’s succinct response. Mark returns his stare with an expression of disbelief before Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “I’m not starting the car until you buckle in.”

“Maybe that’s my intention.”

Turning to look forward, Jaehyun shakes his head. “Buckle up, Mark.”

The silence between them stretches as Mark complies, the car roaring to life seconds later. It’s not new by any means, but it runs significantly smoother than Taeyong’s car, which sounds like it could give out at any second. The vibration of the road is comforting to Mark, and it threatens to pull him to sleep. Exhaustion is always at the edges of his consciousness and, while he knows it would be showing weakness, he assumes that there isn’t anything Jaehyun could say or do to make Mark’s existence worse.

He isn’t sure where Jaehyun is driving, though eventually they leave their small behind them. With it, Mark thinks that part of his anxieties are left there, too. It’s more symbolic than anything. Mark knows that his anxieties are ingrained in his existence. Part of them, though, stem from the town that he’s called home for his entire life. Outside of it, he’s a nameless face in a crowd. The only person out here that knows his name and the barest part of his story is Jaehyun Jung.

Mark thinks that it could be worse.

Somewhere along the way he does fall asleep, his consciousness pulled away by the movement of the car and the signs that speed by with unfamiliar names. His sleep is, as always, dreamless. His exhaustion is too great to allow his mind to think. Rather, there is nothing in his mind as he falls asleep, and there is nothing as he awakens at a red light, the town around them lively and full of cars. It’s so busy that Mark thinks it might be a small city. He wouldn’t know, though. It’s not often that he’s able to leave.

Saturdays are sleepy in their hometown, though life seems to explode once they leave it. Mark likes it—the life that surrounds them.

“Where are we?” he asks, voice soft. He thinks that it must be uncharacteristic to someone unfamiliar to him, and Jaehyun confirms this as he turns towards Mark, lips parted in surprise. “Where are we?” asks Mark again, louder this time.

“A—we… I figured we could go to this drive-in movie theater my dad used to take my brother and I to when we were kids.” Jaehyun’s eyes shake as he speaks before they turn back to the road, a car honking behind them. “I like driving through this town, though. It’s different from ours.”

“From _yours_ ,” Mark corrects. “That place isn’t my town.”

Clearing his throat, Jaehyun shakes his head. It’s not accompanied by anything, and Mark scoffs before turning his attention back outside the car. He thinks that their town must be so lonely and empty that anything feels like a city to him. His childhood is blurry when he tries to think about it—his experiences and feelings have been thickly coated with sadness and anger. Nothing feels real anymore.

So Mark doesn’t think about them. It’s easier that way. There’s such a distance between the Mark of his youth and the Mark of now, that they’re separate people. The continuum that he traveled to reach his present was twisting and convoluted and broken into parts with gaps between them. At some point, the roads were no longer the same color or the same pattern.

At some point, Mark was not the same person.

“I don’t have cash,” says Mark, patting his empty pockets.

“I’ll pay. It’s fine,” Jaehyun says, shaking his head. “It’s not that much. Unless you want food.”

Hands curling into his fists, Mark nods his head no. He can’t open his mouth that wide, anyways, without risking reopening the cut on his lip. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“I’m surprised you’re not fighting me over this.”

“You don’t seem like you’re in the mood to argue. And I’m not, either,” admits Mark, resting his head against the window. The farther they drive, the sparser things become. It begins to look more and more like their town. His stomach curls in on itself as he hums. “I don’t have it in me to fight with you right now.”

“That’s new,” Jaehyuns teases half-heartedly, stopping at a red light. “It’s not an unwelcome change or anything, though.”

“Can you get to the point? Why am I here?”

There’s no response, prompting Mark to lift his head and stare at Jaehyun’s profile. It’s strong—he’s handsome, not that Mark has ever argued that he _isn’t_. Jaehyun is handsome in the sort of way that convinces Mark that he can’t be real. He _must_ be flawed, Mark reasons, because if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be so handsome. Mark hasn’t found any flaws, yet, other than stubbornness and pride, which are things that most people nurture.

Jaehyun’s jaw tightens in tandem with his grip on the wheel, and Mark sits straighter, eyes narrowing.

“ _Why_ am I here?”

“Can you save the questions for later?”

“Oh,” Mark bites, “you want me to start shouting during the movie, huh?”

“I’d rather you not shout, period,” answers Jaehyun honestly. Mark’s reply is a derisive snort that earns him a glare at another light. “Listen. I’m not here to fucking _fight_ with you, Mark Lee. I have _never_ had the intention to fight with you, and I am going against everything I _know_ by spending time with you right now.”

Mark’s laugh is sharp and broken, and he thinks that it’s fine. That’s the way it’s supposed to sound. It’s the way he’s supposed tobe. “Exactly. I’m _bad_ for you. You should leave me alone like everyone else does.”

He isn’t sure if that’s what he wants, though. Mark has lived nearly his entire life alone, and has finally found a place to exist. Some sort of transient happiness that won’t last forever—he _knows_ it won’t last for forever—but is in his hands right now. And that’s the most he can ask for, really. Johnny, Yuta, and Taeyong are walls between him and the reality that he built with his own hands.

Jaehyun has entered his world without Mark realizing. He exists at the periphery, and it’s easy for him to be forgotten. Forgotten is still an existence, and Jaehyun has become a constant. Saturdays are filled with him; his gaze falling on Mark from a distance. It becomes increasingly difficult to ignore him. Mark realizes, now, that he was never actually allowing Jaehyun’s presence to fade to the background. Instead, he was coaxing him forward.

“Donghyuck trusts you,” Jaehyun whispers, hands tightening on the wheel, as if it explains everything.

It doesn’t, but Mark falls silent, anyways.

* * *

Mark can leave. The lights above the shop stare down at him, calling him home, and yet Mark isn’t quite ready to return to them. Jaehyun, beside him, is silent, hands folded neatly in his lap. There are no revelations. Mark hasn’t come to any starling conclusions. Jaehyun is as much of a stranger as he was hours ago.

Now, however, he’s a stranger whose laugh and smile and face Mark thinks he could dream about, if he did. The comfort that Mark feels beside him is still small. Strangers are still strangers, regardless of how much you know about them. And, in reality, there isn’t any reason for Mark to want to know Jaehyun. He is a stranger, and something about that is comforting—makes it easier for Mark to separate each moment with Jaehyun into bits and pieces until they are digestible.

His mind cannot easily wrap around how Jaehyun has appeared in his life to what extent he exists within it, if he does at all. Mark has become accustomed to believing that the presence of most is cursory. Johnny, Yuta, and Taeyong are the only ones that Mark, to some extent, clings to. They are the light at the end of this shitty, shitty tunnel, and he had decided long ago that they are the only ones he needs. Jaehyun is free to come and free to go.

There is peace between them in this car. It is undefined, and Mark thinks that it could shatter if he breathes too loudly. There’s a fine line between the Mark that fears the world around him, and the Mark that is willing to break down the ropes that tie him to the ground. They exist in the same space, at the same time, though that’s a concept that some struggle to understand. Mark, with a firm grip, holds them together so the definition between them is undetectable.

“Will you tell me?” Jaehyun asks, breaking the silence.

“Tell you what?”

“Who did this to you?”

“It’s been weeks,” murmurs Mark, conviction firm. “Let it go.”

The piece is broken as Jaehyun slams his hands on the steering wheel. His nostrils flare and he turns towards Mark, eyes wide with anger as he takes a deep breath. The condensation on the windows continues to gather as Jaehyun struggles to reign in his frustration. It’s a different layer to him that Mark thinks must feel foreign to him as his expression crumples as they dissolve back into silence, fragile this time.

Mark owes him nothing, and Jaehyun knows this. The doors are unlocked, the car is off. He can leave. His hand rests on the door. It would take so little for him to walk away. Instead, he curls farther into the passenger seat, palms pressed flat across his thighs as he wipes the sweat away. If it’s from nerves, or from insolence, Mark isn’t sure. Regardless, his chest feels heavy.

“I,” Jaehyun breaks the silence, “spend every single fucking day wondering which of the people around me did it. Every single fucking day, Mark.”

“That sounds like a _you_ problem.”

Disbelief colors Jaehyun’s face as he exhales in surprise. “Is it? Is it a _me_ problem when you’re getting the shit beaten out of you? Is it a _me_ problem when stupid shit like this is keeping you from your brother who _clearly_ looks up to you? When this shit concerns John, Yuta, and Taeyong?”

“Yeah. It’s a _you_ problem because I’m used to it,” bites out Mark. “And it’s not your fuckin’ job to worry about my shit.”

“ _Tell me_ ,” Jaehyun shouts, “ _who the fuck did this._ ”

Taken aback, Mark presses his lips together. He doesn’t have to tell Jaehyun—he doesn’t have to, and he realizes, with startling clarity, that he doesn’t _want_ to. And it’s a different sort of dissent. It's an urge to protect Jaehyun from the mess that Mark had created for himself. It was one thing for him to envelop himself in the care and concern and protection of individuals already tossed to the side by their town. Mark is hesitant to pull Jaehyun somewhere he has no business being.

Jaehyun has a future that he has accepted. He has enveloped himself in it and embraced it. Whereas Mark found issue, Jaehyun finds solace and then self-acceptance. Or, he assumes as much. There’s a point, Mark thinks, that he should stop running towards conclusions about Jaehyun. He doesn’t know him. It’s the same, he thinks, as to how Jaehyun doesn’t know him.

They teeter on this undefined wall between the two of them. It is built of assumptions and realizations that may have no foundation. Mark, for what it’s worth, has never wanted to understand anyone. And he isn’t sure if he’s wanting to understand Jaehyun, or to figure out what his place is in his life. They’re different things. Understanding a person is not the same as deciphering the role of someone in his life.

“I don’t have to tell you,” Mark ascertains, firm.

“ _Tell me_.” Jaehyun’s hands are balled into fists that slowly relax. One tangles fingers in his hair as he lets out a frustrated groan. “It’s fucking killing me. I can’t trust any of them anymore, Mark. You didn’t _do_ anything to them, and they beat the fucking shit out of you? Are you fucking kidding me? What part of that should I let pass? And it’s not just that I’m concerned about you, Mark. I think people should have accountability for the bullshit they pull, and clearly they don’t.”

“Right,” Mark says, throwing the door open. “You do that, then.”

“ _Mark_.”

“Thanks for today.” Slamming the door shut, Mark walks towards the lights that beckon him home.

Jaehyun can remain a mystery.

* * *

It’s unsatisfying.

Mark feels his fist connect with their face before he realizes what he’s done. Their body stumbles back before they fall to the ground, and the others around them rush forward. Johnny had always warned him to keep his temper in check—to hold his anger close to his chest and never let it go. _Mark_ , Johnny had said, _you’re only asking for trouble if you throw the first punch_.

Until now, he has done well by heading Johnny’s words. In his head, Mark reasons that at least he didn’t throw the first punch. He threw the second.

He isn’t sure where the blows are originating—who’s throwing what punch, whose kicks are connecting with his ribs versus his legs. All Mark knows is that it fucking hurts and he’s desperate to find some sort of peace in his head after consecutive blows meet their target with accuracy that’s significantly better than he would expect from someone inebriated.

Getting the shit beaten out of him on the sidewalk in a small town probably isn’t the best place to be considering the ways he’s fucked himself over, but Mark thinks that there’s never a good time to think about that. There’s never a good time to think about how he’s rendered Jeno an anxious mess—already fueled his brother to creep in the blindspots of their parents’ watchful gaze. There’s never a good time to think about how he’s dug himself a hole so deep that he can no longer crawl out. The soil is loose—there is nowhere for him to grab.

Rather than finding himself in a canyon, trapped, where at least rock can carry his weight, Mark has dug his own grave. Densely packed soil still crumbles under his grip, providing him no means to crawl back out. He’s too far down to dig himself a slope and drag his body back into the light. There are things that are irreversible, he thinks, and this is one of them.

Mark has dug his own grave and he would sooner seek the end than drag another person down with him. And, afterall, he has found other people navigating this underground with him. Other people tossed into highway ditches by society. Johnny, Taeyong, and Yuta hold Mark close and do their best to teach Mark how to survive. And he tries his hardest to listen. It’s hard when rebellion is coded into his mind—when it’s the only option that Mark can see with his mind’s eye.

Curling his body up tighter, Mark’s fingers lock behind his head, tucking his chin against his chest. Every blow is more severe than the last, and Mark can hear the fucking sick laughter they let out. A testament to how they think this is a _game_. Mark wishes that he could laugh along with them. He can’t, though. Instead he’s crumbling the longer it goes on. The pain of each kick is beginning the slow process of pulling Mark away from the safety of his mind.

He wonders when they will find him this time; if it’ll be seconds, minutes, or hours. Perhaps even a day, where the inhabitants of their town will walk over his body as he waits for someone to find him. The odds are in his favor in a population so small, but even hours feel like forever.

Even hours feel like abandonment.

“What the _fuck_ are you all doing?”

Mark wants to die.

“Captain! Just in time.”

As the bodies move away, Mark’s body relaxes until he’s on his back, staring up at the street lamps. Moths circle the artificial light, and Mark thinks that he’s like them—drawn to things that offer no reward. Drawn to things that will do nothing but hurt him. Nothing feels broken, but Mark attributes the lack of crippling pain to the adrenaline rushing through his body.

“Are you _fucking kidding me_ , Chwe? Are you trying to get yourself benched?”

“Re _lax_ , cap,” there’s a chorus of laughter before they continue to speak, “no one will do shit if it’s Mark Lee.”

“I’ll bench you.”

A sound of disbelief is followed by silence.

“You’re kidding.”

“Go home. All of you.” No one moves, and Mark closes his eyes. He couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. “If you know what’s fucking good for you, you’ll go home.”

“You’re really jumping to his aid? Have you lost your fucking mind, Jaehyun?”

“No, but you’ve clearly lost yours if you’re walking around after games looking for people to fuck up,” Jaehyun barks. “Go home.”

“Didn’t expect this from you, cap.”

Conversation dies as they walk away. Mark still can’t sit up. The longer he lays there, the more pain invades his body, and he realizes that it’ll be awhile before he feels whole again. The moths continue to circle the light as Jaehyun sits beside him on the sidewalk. Concrete, deep into the fall, is frigid, and it seeps into Mark’s body, providing the barest of reprieve from the pain. It’s not enough, though. Nothing is.

Against all odds—against his wishes—Jaehyun has found him yet again. Mark doesn’t feel grateful, though. He’s not sure he feels anything, really. There’s a deep-set emptiness in his mind right now. It’s always existed there, and he’s not quite sure how to get it to go away. Mark’s not even sure if he can make it go away. It might be a permanent fixture in his psyche. He’s not sure.

“I called John,” whispers Jaehyun. The wind carries his words—swallows them whole and delivers them, delicately, to Mark, who opens his eyes. “He’s on his way to get you.”

“I’m not thankful,” Mark says.

“I’m not asking for your thanks.”

“Right.”

Around them, the town sleeps. In the morning, it will be thrumming; brought to life through rumors and whispers and speculation. Despite everything Mark has done, Jaehyun has embroiled himself into the mess that Mark has made of his own volition. There is no turning back from this moment.

If Mark could, he would cry.

* * *

“Thanks for offering to watch over him, Jaehyun.”

“It’s not a problem.”

Mark wonders if they think they’re being quiet. His door is wide open after all, voices trailing in from the kitchen. It’s been days, and Mark wants to tell them that he can take care of himself. He knows that he can’t, though—not with his arms bandaged up, legs bruised, left wrist broken in a way that Mark can’t even wrap his head around. So many delicate, broken bones.

In the doorway, Jaehyun stands, backpack in his arms. He’s sporting a black eye of his own and Mark fights his face, eventually allowing a frown to work its way on his face. Jaehyun seems to be mirroring him, hood pulled over his head, resting just above his eyes.

“What?”

Pressing his lips together, Mark shakes his head, though the action uproots him; sends his conscience flying. “Don’t you have practice?”

“Season’s over,” Jaehyun answers easily. “Didn’t even qualify for the playoffs. It’s whatever. I’m glad it’s fucking over.”

“Am I allowed to ask?”

There’s a huff that Mark thinks is supposed to be a laugh as Jaehyun sits at the foot of his bed, careful to avoid his legs. Instead, Mark curls his legs up, giving Jaehyun enough room to exist in Mark’s space comfortably. His gaze tells Mark not to, though it’s not as if they ever truly respected one another’s barriers, anyways.

“Who did it? Or why?”

“Word travels. I deserved it.”

Mark thinks that Jaehyun _didn’t_ deserve it, but instead he chooses to press forward, gesturing towards the hood. In response, Jaehyun’s hand presses down firmly to the top of his head, fingers pressing firmly. “What about that?”

“I made a deal. If we didn’t make it, I’d cut it. So we cut it.”

His words trail off, and Mark realizes that there’s more to it— presses forward until he’s pushing Jaehyun’s hand away from his head. There’s no pushback as Mark pulls back Jaehyun’s hood. The cut is choppy. It’s too short in some places, exposing his scalp. Others are still too long. Small cuts are already scabbed over in the most barren of patches. Mark wonders if it’s supposed to look shameful. Mark wonders if that was their intention.

“This isn’t what I was expecting, though,” says Jaehyun with a broken laugh.

It takes Mark a while to swallow his anger. He’s slow to sit back and fold his anger smaller and smaller until he can store it away, where it will eventually dissolve. Where it will disappear when Mark is ready to let it go. He heaves a breath, heavy, before staring at Yuta, who stands in the door. Jaehyun’s gaze follows his, and the three of them sit in silence. Mark isn’t sure for how long. It seems to stretch on for forever, though not in an uncomfortable sort of way.

“I can fix that,” Yuta says firmly, stepping forward. “Let me fix it.”

“It’s fine. I deserve it.”

“I’ll just even it out where I can.” Yuta is striding forward now, fingers delicate as they card through Jaehyun’s hair. “It’s the least I can do, anyways.” He delves into silence, contemplative, before he smiles. “Should we color it, too? Or is that pushing it?”

Jaehyun has entered their world—a single step—and Mark can see the uncertainty painted across his face as he looks from Yuta to Mark, eyes wide. There’s no going back once you’ve entered, Mark thinks. It’s a sentence. It’s an outcome.

Mark hopes that Jaehyun can be the exception.


	5. Want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the moment, there are things that Jaehyun wants and things that Jaehyun needs. They overlap quite nicely.

The sound of clattering and cursing drifts to the bathroom over the sound of the razor buzzing through his hair and the phone shoved into a red solo cup, playing some alternating mix of Japanese rock and classical piano. It’s therapeutic in a way, and Jaehyun allows himself to close his eyes and curl in on himself as Yuta works, humming along. The bathroom is small, and not nearly big enough for the three of them, though Mark squeezes his way in anyways, body sprawled out in the tub.

A fan, placed carefully by Mark, circulates the air; preparation for the box of bleach that Yuta has placed on the counter space. Beside it are several colors, and Jaehyun still isn’t sure what he wants. He doesn’t really care; it’s more of a passing thing. His parents will throw a shit-fit the moment they see him—rush him to their hairdresser to fix it.

Jaehyun, though, hopes that they don’t. He’s growing into his rebellion by stretching his arms and occupying the space that he learns he has; the space that his blinders had kept him from seeing. The more confidence Jaehyun gains, the farther he can see. Slowly but surely, he is finding freedom.

It comes at a cost, though. He ignores the distance that has sprouted between him and those that he considered friends, and the cracks and canyons that are beginning to erupt between him and his father. His mother tries to hold him close, and Donghyuck looks up at him with eyes that seem to shine brighter. There are wins, and there are losses, and Jaehyun still can’t decide which he values more.

And things fragment at an exponential rate, beginning slowly and increasing in speed. His grades and his scholarships and his applications do not slip from his hands, even as everything else does. It has nothing to do with him, and it has everything to do with what things in life he can control and those which he cannot.

For the first time in his life, something dangles in front of Jaehyun’s face that has the ability to be manipulated by him. He’s eager to take this opportunity and run with it—spreading his proverbial wings as far as they can go. Jaehyun will leave what he can behind and protect what he can’t. It’s not evident to him, yet, what the consequences will be. The immediate ones have presented themselves already, though Jaehyun squints against the sunlight to see that which exists in the future.

His hair falls to the ground as Yuta trims it. There’s something symbolic or poetic about it, Jaehyun is sure, though he doesn’t have the power to think about it in such a way. If anything, it’s fixing something that was broken into something new. Everything has changed, and Jaehyun isn’t sure if there’s going back. He isn’t sure he wants to go back, anyways.

When he closes his eyes, Jaehyun can still see Mark on the sidewalk, grinning up at the streetlamps like he couldn’t believe what was happening. Beyond the nearly-crippling arousal that festers in Jaehyun’s gut whenever he thinks about Mark for _too_ long, there’s something beyond it all that’s captured him—pulling Jaehyun in so far that he can no longer see where he began. It’s okay, though.

The grip around his wrist has never been too tight; the direction has never been foreign. Jaehyun has always had the opportunity to turn around and find another place to rest his mind.

“Should you be dying it?” Mark asks from the tub. Yuta and Jaehyun, in sync, turn around to face Mark, who scrolls through his phone without looking up. “He still has all those scratches and whatever on his scalp. Won’t it, like, make it worse or whatever?”

“They look worse than they really are,” admits Jaehyun, reaching up with hesitant fingers as he runs them along his scalp.

And it’s not a lie—Jaehyun is beyond offering those to Mark. They’re artifacts of an event from a week ago. If anything, he wants to move forward from them. He knows that this isn’t the wisest choice—that things could, of course, develop and become worse from this decision. Jaehyun doesn’t care about that, though, so desperate to leave this part of his life in the past.

Yuta’s touch is gentle as he brushes away Jaehyun’s fingers, examining his head before meeting Jaehyun’s gaze in the mirror. “It’s up to you.”

“Un _fucking_ believeable,” mutters Mark. There’s the sound of him moving around, and Jaehyun assumes that he’s crossed his arms and turned away. “Fine. It’s your fuckin’ funeral when the bleach and dye touches those. It’s gonna hurt _real_ fuckin’ bad.”

“I don’t care.” Fingers tangle with the hem of his t-shirt as Jaehyun nods to Yuta. “I think I like the red, though.”

“Trying to make a statement, I see,” Yuta replies with a grin. “I like it.”

It does burn. It burns so _fucking_ much, but Jaehyun bites the inside of his cheek and listens to the whir of the fan; the sound of Yuta’s playlist running in circles as the bleach processes, or whatever, and, to be completely honest, Jaehyun didn’t pay much attention to what Yuta was telling him, too focused on breathing. Mark, now perched on the toilet, shoots him an _I-told-you-so_ look that Jaehyun ignores.

The red is loud—it’s what Jaehyun had wanted. It’s what Jaehyun _wants_. For the first time in his fucking life, he wants to be heard, beyond the _Yes, sir_ ’s and _Yes, ma’am_ ’s that he offers in a polite voice to quell the curious stares of those who call this small town home. His father will be angry—perhaps turn the same color of his hair—and his mother will place a hand on the back of his neck in silent acceptance. Jaehyun doesn’t particularly care about that, though.

To his right, Mark stares at him, and Jaehyun can’t decipher whether it’s amusement or regret. There’s time to figure that out, though.

Turning around, Jaehyun smiles at Yuta, who begins to tidy up the cramped bathroom, singing along to the music. “Thanks.”

Yuta pauses, standing stock still, before a grin blooms across his face. It’s friendly and warm and welcoming, and Jaehyun wonders what things had to happen for this to be shoved into hiding. “Anytime, kid.”

* * *

It’s hard for Jaehyun not to feel betrayed by Jungwoo. He had stood to the back and watched on, to his own credit, in horror as their teammates had pinned Jaehyun to the ground—punished him in a way that they felt was righteous before leaving him on the locker room floor. There’s something symbolic of being left on a grimy tile floor, surrounded by buzzed-off locks of your own hair, though Jaehyun hadn’t been able to find it in that moment.

He understands it a little better, now, finally reveling in his placement on the other side of the classroom. The only two who offer him any sort of glance or sympathy are Seokmin, who doesn’t surprise him, and Sicheng, who does. And it leaves Jaehyun on the edge of his seat, eager to bolt as soon as the bell rings.

His entire day functions this way, Jaehyun’s shoulders rising higher and higher and higher until they’re a permanent fixture around his ears. It’s the closest he can get himself to blocking out the whispers of those around him. Those outside of his social circle wonder if it was another lost bet; they wonder if Jaehyun had pissed off more than one person on the team. Those who _know_ turn their backs. There isn’t anything for them to say anymore. Jaehyun, they feel, has already turned his back on them.

It’s frightening how quickly things can turn on their heads. Jaehyun had, weeks ago, been perched on top of the world. Now he struggles to hold his ground, shoving his body into the stalls of bathrooms and tearing apart his sandwich while standing. It’s pitiful, the way his body seizes in fear whenever a new body enters the bathroom.

Sometimes, if Jaehyun is lucky, though he isn’t sure if that’s the right word, he’ll meet Jungwoo’s gaze. There’s regret, and disgust, and confusion, and Jaehyun understands all three. Much like the speed at which his world turned on its head, he had changed without anyone realizing.

When his thoughts escape him, Jaehyun thinks of his father. There was no conversation—no words exchanged between them when Jaehyun had returned, head heavy on his neck. In a way, it was worse than his father yelling. Jaehyun would have liked _any_ sort of response other than silence. His mother was gentle—a brush of her fingers along the back of his neck before she had disappeared from the kitchen to follow his father.

Donghyuck had leaned his head on his hands before grinning at Jaehyun. “You’re getting it, I see,” he had said, like he was waiting for Jaehyun.

And Jaehyun thinks that maybe Donghyuck _was_ waiting.

His brother has always been free of their father’s grasp, moving too fast and too far for them to catch up. Jaehyun had been placed in a proverbial cage—non-existent to all but himself. It was a prison of his own creation, and he had festered in it until it was too late, and he existed well within his father’s shadow. There is still a journey ahead of him to escape it.

“Jung.” A voice that echoes in the bathroom stills Jaehyun’s breathing, and he hopes that if he holds it for long enough, the unwelcome visitor will disappear. There’s a sigh, before, “I know it’s you. I know you’re in here.”

“No?”

“Jesus Christ,” a banging on the door to the stall, “you’re fucking useless. It’s me. Sicheng.”

 _Okay_ , Jaehyun wants to say. _Okay, what does it matter?_

Jaehyun doesn’t have a voice anymore, though. Instead, he presses his lips together, firmly, arms falling to his sides. His sandwich is a goner in his grip at this point, and he listens to the sound of the lettuce falling out from between the slices of bread and the cold cuts that his mother had cut to neatly fit the bread, as always. It’s the only noise for minutes, and as the first warning bell signals the imminent end of lunch, there’s another banging on the stall door.

“Open the _fucking_ door, Jung, or I’ll key your fuckin’ car.”

Throwing the door open, he narrows his eyes. A threat from Sicheng Dong is never empty, and Jaehyun worked far too hard to have his car keyed to hell and back by him. “What? What the _fuck_ do you want? Do you want to tell me what a fucking piece of shit I am to my face, too? Because, get in _fucking_ line. You’re not the first, you’re not the last, and you’re just as big of a piece of fucking trash as everyone else if that’s the case.”

Hands held up, Sicheng presses his lips together in a silent response as Jaehyun’s chest heaves up and down. It’s quiet, and Jaehyun tries his hardest not to bolt as the second bell rings, signaling the end of the lunch period. It’s not like he _has_ a class this period—he did it on purpose. He wanted the luxury of extending his lunch and escaping the workload of a full schedule. Jaehyun never thought that it would be an escape in this sort of way, though.

“Where’s this kinda fight when the people around you are houndin’ you?” Sicheng asks, pulling his mouth into a frown. “But—whatever. That’s not what I’m here for. I wanna talk after school. I have an hour between the last bell and practice.”

“Why should I?”

“My little brothers—both of ‘em—don’t have a problem with Mark, and I’m more inclined to believe them than my old folks, you know,” Sicheng replies, backing away. “Whether you wanna trust or believe me is your fuckin’ deal. But I will tell you that Renjun doesn’t have a problem with Mark, and that kid’s got a good eye for bullshit.”

He disappears with a shrug and Jaehyun is left in the bathroom with the shell of a sandwich and a heavy load of confusion on his shoulders.

Closing the stall door again, Jaehyun isn’t sure what to make of the world anymore. Not that he ever really knew.

* * *

This is stupid. It’s fucking stupid and Jaehyun _knows_ it, and yet he’s still standing across from the locker room door, hood pulled tightly over his head. It doesn’t offer him any anonymity. Jaehyun’s closet is small and his preferred outfits are even smaller. Everyone knows what he wears, how he looks, how he stands. He’s been in the spotlight for as long as he can remember. There’s no hiding in the shadows here.

“No text or anything?” Sicheng asks, the door swinging open. “Had to find out you’re standing out here from a bunch of swimmers whispering among themselves.”

“Don’t have your number,” mutters Jaehyun, scuffing his foot on the tile ground. “Figured you’d find me or you wouldn’t. Doesn’t matter either way.”

It’s startling as Sicheng grabs him by the sleeve and drags him away from the doors towards the abandoned cafeteria. There’s nothing but silence around them. A pin could drop and Jaehyun thinks it would crack the tile beneath his feet and open a hole big enough to swallow both of them up. There’s an hour for him to say what he wants—there have been hours for him to formulate his thoughts and put them in an orderly sort of way so Jaehyun could understand them.

Both of them, it seems, struggle with that.

Sicheng is, in many ways, a stranger. Jaehyun has known him his entire life, though he knows nothing about him. It’s one of those frightening sorts of products of a small town where everyone knows the hour you were born. Jaehyun could figure out Sicheng’s star chart if he really gave a fuck—pick apart his insecurities that sort of way—but he doesn’t.

He never really gave a fuck about the people in this town until he did. For his entire life, Jaehyun was hell-bent on leaving this place for good. He would succeed and make his father proud. Jaehyun would play football in a university a few hours away, his family cheering in the crowd as he made game-winning pass after game-winning pass. He never realized how fragile that future is until he stood with fragments left in his hands.

There’s still a future in football, if the scholarships and the barely concealed promises are any sort of indication. His family may not be in the crowd, though Jaehyun isn’t sure if he wanted that in the first place. The expectations set upon his shoulders were—are—crippling, to a degree. And it’s less _to a degree_ , and more that the expectations that his father set for him absolutely decimated any ability for Jaehyun to think or exist for himself.

The expectations, though, gave Jaehyun goals to reach. And, as shallow as they were, they helped Jaehyun prioritize. Without them—with the smallest pieces of them remaining—Jaehyun feels like his wandering is aimless. Without them, Jaehyun is left on his own. Those that surrounded him were purveyors of the same lifeless goals. When he had abandoned those goals, they had abandoned him.

Jaehyun still doesn’t give a shit about the people that call this town home.

Sicheng’s gaze is serious—characteristic of him—as he clears his throat. There’s a moment where Jaehyun looks him in the eyes and thinks that he might have managed to find an ally in this shithole of a school. And with Sicheng would come Minghao, a supporter that would do a world of good as he works against the status quo. Things are, always, too good to be true, though.

“You did the right thing.”

It takes everything in him and more to push the sneer from his face as Jaehyun brushes Sicheng’s hand off his arm. “Definitely. Glad you have the courage to say this shit here, and not in front of everyone else.”

Sicheng’s silence is damning. It says more than words could. Jaehyun isn’t sure how to navigate this—the pity that settles in Sicheng’s gaze; the guilt that pierces Jaehyun’s gut. In a town that is built so securely on a foundation of normalcy, Jaehyun steps off it and onto a cracking, unbalanced wasteland where people are forced to learn to survive before they have any chance of thriving. Jaehyun isn’t sure if he’s capable of it.

The people around him surely don’t think he is, and he wonders if it’s a lack of confidence in themselves. On your own, it’s frightening to take the first step. That much Jaehyun is willing to admit.

“I’m afraid to break the status quo,” Sicheng admits, stepping back. “I never said I wasn’t. I’m not ready to rock the fuckin’ boat or whatever you did. To be honest, I didn’t even care what the fuck you did until they mentioned Mark. He’s not bad. Renjun sees some good in the guy, and I’m inclined to believe him. And even Kunhang doesn’t mind him.”

“Then _why_ ,” Jaehyun’s hands curl into fists, “do you just sit there while everyone spits fucking _nonsense_ about him? Who the fuck cares about the status quo when people who talk shit are actually pulling through and beating the shit out of him?”

“Because it’s not my place, Jaehyun.”

Digging through his pocket for his keys, Jaehyun snorts before walking away. “Don’t you remember what they taught us in health class when we were kids, Sicheng? There’s no such thing as an innocent bystander. And I’m tired of being stuck on the sidelines.”

That night Jaehyun doesn’t mind the silence at the dinner table, or the way his father looks at him, or the discomfort that sings clearly as Jaehyun hops back into his car, dinner half-eaten. There are more important things, he thinks, than festering in a place that devours his unhappiness until he’s left completely empty.

He’s not sure where to go—what place will accept him.

When John opens the door, he’s still not sure.

* * *

“Jaehyun?”

There’s a deep breath—a singular one—before Jaehyun lets out a sob. It’s pitiful, and broken, and Jaehyun isn’t sure how he kept it tied up in his chest so neatly until now. It’s grown and grown and grown to an unimaginable size until it burst, too large for the box that Jaehyun had tucked it away in so carefully. It is one thing for Jaehyun to hold his head up high, and it is another for him to exist confidently.

For Jaehyun, they cannot exist in the same sort of way.

John isn’t sure what to say, not that Jaehyun blames him. There isn’t anything to say, anyways, when a stranger appears at your door in a shattered sort of mess, and it’s not your job to pick up the pieces, but you do. Taeyong shuffles around and Yuta gathers things together and Jaehyun isn’t sure how he ends up on the couch, tucked under layers of blankets as a meteorologist on the Weather Channel drones on about the blizzard of 1978.

The monotone of the show is soothing, and it’s several more minutes before Jaehyun realizes he’s leaning into Yuta’s touch as he rubs the space behind Jaehyun’s ear soothingly. To his other side, Taeyong stares at the television as mindlessly as Jaehyun assumes he was moments ago. John is nowhere to be seen, though he’s heard clearly enough in the kitchen, the sound of dishes trailing in.

It’s comfortable.

This is the sort of existence that Jaehyun thinks that he’s been craving. It’s an easy sort, where the expectations have been thrown to the side and Jaehyun isn’t struggling to breathe. His head is above water and his lungs can access the air he had been kept from his entire life. An old PlayStation hides under the television stand, stacks of old game titles piled to the side.

In the doorway, Mark stands, lips pressed together in a firm line. Jaehyun wonders how he must look to Mark. He wonders how they must look to the others, who take the hint, disappearing into their own rooms and closing the doors in a false sort of ignorance. Blankets falling to the side, Jaehyun follows Mark into the kitchen. There’s a pause, the table a sort of barrier between the two.

“Why are you here?”

“Where else am I supposed to go?”

“Anywhere else,” Mark whispers. “ _Any_ where else. Just not here.”

“I… I needed somewhere to go.” Jaehyun’s hands curl around the hem of his sweater several times before he lets them fall to the side. “This is the only place I could think of.”

Mark’s face screws into something ugly as his eyes narrow. It’s something that should frighten Jaehyun—he _knows_ this, though there are few things about Mark Lee that scare him anymore. He is a proverbial black box and Jaehyun has learned to accept the consequences of delving into something that he has no understanding of. And, beyond the uncertainty, Jaehyun knows that Mark isn’t as scary as he wants the world to think he is.

“And you helped me,” he adds. “I don’t know what the fuck we are, but that’s something that people do when they care about the other person.”

“It was a one-time thing,” Mark says, though his own voice sounds unsure. “And I don’t care about you. Don’t be delusional. You don’t wanna to be here. You don’t wanna to be a part of this shit.”

Jaehyun doesn’t want to believe him. In fact, Jaehyun _doesn’t_ believe him. “Yeah, well,” Jaehyun says, hands curled into fists by his side, “I’m afraid that you don’t get to go around making decisions for _me_.”

“This isn’t—”

“Yes it _is_ , Mark. It’s _my_ decision, and you’re the one shoving me around and pretending like I’m not a perfectly coherent human who can make decisions on their own.” Slamming his hands on the table, he takes a deep breath before continuing. “I want to be a part of your life. Stop fucking _shoving me away_. What’s so fucking scary about me? Is it because I was like them?”

“It’s because you _are_ one of them. You have a _future_ , Jaehyun,” Mark is stalking around the table, now, shoving Jaehyun backwards until he’s up against the wall. “You have a _future_ , and I’m not gonna be the one to take that from you.”

Frustration bubbles as Jaehyun groans, hands relaxing for a moment. His hand clutches at his chest as he says, “You couldn’t take my future from me if you fucking _tried_. This is my future, and if I want you—and John and Yuta and Taeyong—to be a part of it, then _let it happen_. You aren’t taking anything away from me, Mark.”

“You don’t know that,” Mark tears Jaehyun’s hand away from his chest, “because you’re ignoring it. You’re like this—broken—because of me. Your fuckin’ _pride_ ’s gone ‘cause of me. This shitty town’s turned its back on you because of _me_. And you’re tellin’ me you want me in your life still?”

“My world’s already upside-down, Mark Lee,” admits Jaehyun, softly. “You guys have set it back, right-side up. So, yes. I want you in my life. Still. Now.”

Stepping away, Mark shakes his head. Regardless of how stubborn he is, Jaehyun has learned that it’s easy to win him over. It’s quiet as Mark runs his hands through his hair before wandering back to the living room. Jaehyun, quiet, follows him.

“Aren’t jocks supposed to be stupid and heartless?”

Rolling his eyes, Jaehyun pushes Mark towards the couch. “Aren’t delinquents supposed to be reckless and uncaring?”

“Touché,” Mark mutters.

“Well?”

“I gave you an out,” reaffirms Mark. “And it’ll always be there. You don’t have to.”

“I _want_ to.”

“Okay,” Mark says, and he looks like he believes Jaehyun.

“Okay,” echoes Jaehyun. Crouching down in front of the PlayStation, he smiles. “So… where are the controllers?”

* * *

Mark flicks a cigarette butt off the passenger seat and out the door, now open. Jaehyun stands there, mouth hanging open as the people around him begin to whisper. Not that he cares anymore. Students will always have endless things to say and, in the end, it never will really go anywhere. The farthest it will go is to his father. Jaehyun has accepted the silence and learned to exist in it.

“Well?” Mark slaps the back of the seat. “Get the _fuck_ in, Jaehyun Jung. We got places to be, people to see.”

Jaehyun knows it’s for show, but throws himself into the passenger seat, anyway. “Yeah.”

“Anywhere in particular you wanna go?”

It’s an empty question because there _isn’t_ anywhere to go, and all Jaehyun wants to ask about is the burning in his chest he felt with his first cigarette and if that’s the sensation that Mark chases instead of the buzz; Jaehyun wants to ask about John and Yuta and Taeyong and the way they hold one another close; he wants to know how Mark navigated the unknown once he left the world that they were taught to accept without a second thought.

Instead, Jaehyun says he wants to feel free.

In the end, they park on an abandoned road, an expansive farm reaching far beyond the space that Jaehyun can see. It’s cathartic in a way, knowing that there are so many places where Jaehyun cannot see the boundaries. He doesn’t crave control, or knowledge. Jaehyun simply wants to be reminded of the ways that he is not alone in his aimless wandering.

“They grew out of the foster system,” Mark says suddenly.

Turning his head, Jaehyun watches as Mark reaches out to collect cigarette butts and shove them into the cup holders. There’s a pile there, and Jaehyun wonders who they’re from—whether they’re all from Mark, or if they all spend time on this quiet road, cigarette in hand, allowing their minds to fester on unwelcome thoughts.

“Who?”

“Johnny. And Taeyong. And Yuta.” Pressing his palms against his thighs, Mark shakes his head. “It’s a miracle that they found one another. It’s normal that the system failed ‘em. The world doesn’t give a fuck about you once you’re an adult. They pretend they wanna save you when you’re a kid, you start to see their lies when you’re a teen, and then they rip the perfect pictures off your brick windows before shoving you into a world that doesn’t want you.”

He can’t pretend to understand. Jaehyun is just dipping his toes into this world that feels so foreign to him. In a sort of way, Jaehyun feels selfish for pushing away everything that he had in favor of a world that probably only looks perfect from the outside.

There’s a wry smile before Mark leans back, fingers tracing the steering wheel as he stares forward. “Honest to fuckin’ God, man, I didn’t deserve them. I don’t. I was just a fucked-up kid who didn’t know better. I got lucky. Instead of tellin’ me to fuck off, they took me in. Said that every system can fail the kids. I didn’t deserve that, and now I wanna make it up to ‘em. I’m trying.”

“At least you figured it out sooner than later.”

Silence is thick, though every time it’s easier to breathe. Mark is nothing short of breathtaking as he rolls his head to face Jaehyun, gaze inquisitive. There must be a million thoughts and questions and feelings whirling around in his mind that, in some way, must mirror Jaehyun’s own. This is a new world for the both of them—a territory that they had learned not to trespass in. A territory that they’re both learning isn’t quite as dangerous as those around them told them it would be.

Eventually, Mark settles on a direction that he’s willing to guide the conversation. It rolls off his tongue so easily that Jaehyun wonders whether it was courage that Mark was searching for, rather than the right question.

“Why’d you take the risk, Jaehyun?”

“Because you’re not as bad as this town makes you seem.” Fingers trailing against the edge of the open window, Jaehyun stares out at the empty fields. Fall is descending into winter, though Jaehyun’s never really cared much about the cold. “And you see something that I can’t. I want to see it, too.”

“That’s all?”

“And you’re pretty hot,” Jaehyun admits with a grin.

Throwing his head back, Mark howls with laughter. “Don’t fuckin’ stroke my ego, Jung.”


	6. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of Jaehyuns, Marks, and Jenos. And Home.

It’s been weeks since Mark has allowed Jaehyun into his world. There is space, now, for him to reside, though Mark still feels hesitant to let him farther in. Jaehyun, however, is an unstoppable force, more than willing to ignore Mark’s warnings and continue to move forward. He lacks hesitation, stepping into parts of Mark’s world in unexpected ways. He is bright eyes and a loud laugh that invades Mark’s world.

Jaehyun brings life to the small apartment over the shop; Yuta so openly pulls him into the kitchen when he enters their home, putting him to work and crowing about how useless Mark is in the kitchen—how hard it is to take care of things when Taeyong and Johnny are working. And Jaehyun just laughs, commiserates, and tells Yuta that whenever he needs Jaehyun, all he needs to do is call.

Mark vacillates between an acceptance of Jaehyun’s newfound, undefined role in his life, and a deep-rooted need to separate themselves. Neither of them are blind or deaf to the words that people around them whisper. Mark can imagine the looks and the words and the way people are treating Jaehyun now that he has decided he wants to stay.

Standing on top of the empty train, Mark holds out a hand to Jaehyun, who peers at it with acute curiosity before staring at the empty world around him. Gravel crunches under his feet before he’s hoisting himself up to stand beside Mark. He knows that if Johnny, or Taeyong, or Yuta figure out they’re here Mark will be fucking dead. And in a way, he’d deserve it.

It’s been so long, though, since he’s sat on top of the trains and just allowed himself to exist. He can’t remember if this is where they found him or not. Memories have sort of blurred together in the sort of way that Mark knows there is a before them, and a during them, and there will be an after them, but he cannot define them. The moon hangs in the sky and Mark thinks it would look pretty if the clouds didn’t pass periodically, blocking what little light it provides.

“Do you come here often?” Jaehyun asks. It would be corny, and silly, but it’s Jaehyun, and it’s honest and open, and genuine, and Mark scoffs as he sits himself down, Jaehyun taking the cue to do the same. “Is that a yes?”

“I would do it more often if Johnny didn’t threaten to beat my ass every time he caught me here,” mutters Mark, staring out. Beyond the gates that enclose the tracks a long expanse of nothing. Mark has considered, too many times, jumping the gate and running until he couldn’t run anymore. He’s not sure he’d ever reach anything, though. It’s not like there’s much of anything waiting in the immediate area. Mark will need to run until his legs break and bleed to reach much of anything. “Every fuckin’ time, it’s, ‘ _Mark. Don’t you fuckin’ dare do it again._ ’ It’s not like it’s my fault I have spray paint on me.”

Jaehyun regards Mark with unbridled amusement before turning his head away. “It’s just because he cares. Doesn’t want you to get into more trouble, yeah?”

“You sound like Taeyong,” Mark picks at a stray thread on his jeans, “And all he does is nag me.”

“It’s because—”

“He cares,” finishes Mark, rolling his eyes. “Yeah. I know. I get it. It’s ‘cause everyone cares.”

His laugh is more of a huff as he holds out his hand, Mark’s lighter resting flat in his palm. “You left this in my car last weekend. I meant to give it back to you sooner, but you never asked about it. I assumed you have others.”

Mark turns the lighter over in Jaehyun’s hand before pushing his hand back in Jaehyun’s direction. He doesn’t need it. Doesn’t want it anymore. It’s a habit he’s trying his hardest to kick. Smoking isn’t good for him, or the people around him, and he’s trying this new thing called not taking others down with collateral damage. Everything is easier said than done, though, he supposes, and every so often he realizes it, staring at the cigarette between his fingers.

His bedside table is marred with singed circles, increasing in frequency every day. Johnny asks him what the change of heart is—where Mark delineates between caring for himself and caring for others. Mark doesn’t think there’s much of a difference.

“I’ll keep it in my car, then,” Jaehyun says, “for if you ever need it.”

“Thanks.” And Mark means it. “I appreciate that.”

Jaehyun’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles. It’s fucked up, the way that Mark’s head automatically bows as Jaehyun’s laughter fills the air, too loud. And it doesn’t lower from fear of being caught.

“Well, I mean,” Jaehyun waves his hand around, “you always keep those weird cheese and peanut butter crackers in your car for me. So, I guess we’re even?”

Pushing Jaehyun’s shoulder, Mark snorts. “Not even close. But it’s a start.”

* * *

“You’ve been happier lately,” Johnny says softly, sitting on the couch. He’s so far away from Mark, as if he’s afraid to scare him away. Mark doesn’t understand the space, but allows it to exist, anyways. Johnny is cognizant—gives space when Mark is going to need it. “I’m glad.”

Raising an eyebrow, Mark puts down his pen and adjusts his beanie. “What’re you about to say?”

“No,” he interjects quickly, “I’m just saying. You’ve been happier. It’s nice to see.”

“Johnny. Stop trying to fight it. You’re curious. What do you wanna ask?” Leaning his head on his hand, he presses his lips together.

Internal conflict rages in Johnny’s gaze, and Mark decides to look away, for better or for worse. Their old television’s picture lacks color, and sometimes Mark can’t tell what’s blue or what’s gray. But it’s big, and they have a Playstation hooked up to the thing, so he can’t really complain. It serves a purpose, even if it does it somewhat terribly. It’s something of a metaphor, Mark guesses, for all of them.

They’re sort of fucked up, and they’re lacking in ways, but they get the job done. He’s not sure where Taeyong is, or Yuta, but if they didn’t say, it’s none of his business. Mark’s never been one to pry when it’s not appropriate. Johnny, in his periphery, turns his body all the way to face him. Mark doesn’t look his way.

“Your parents called the other day,” Johnny says, slowly. “The shop, I mean. Not one of us. Well, technically one of us—”

“Just fucking spit it out, Johnny,” barks Mark, head whipping to face him. “What’d they say? That they didn’t want their piece o’ shit son anywhere near their fuckin’ pristine palace? That they want me to skip town and die on the streets of some faraway city? That they’re fuckin’ sick of seeing my face around here? That they want me to stay away from Jeno?”

Chest heaving, he blinks as he realizes he’s standing, hands tangled in Johnny’s shirt. For what it’s worth, Johnny receives him calmly, his movements careful and measured as he slowly releases Mark’s hands from his grip before pulling him back to sit on the couch. It’s infuriating to Mark that they still have such an effect on him—that his anger for them is still so consuming. There’s so many layers to it that Mark can’t dissect. Won’t dissect. They broke him, and be broke them back, and nothing between them is repairable anymore. Not that Mark wants to fix anything.

The distance that he’s forced between them still isn’t enough. It won’t be enough until he’s miles and miles and miles and years away from this stupid, fucked up town and he feels like he can breathe again. And he’s sure, even then, their proverbial hands will still be so tight around his neck.

There’s a pause before he realizes. His mouth runs dry and he thinks of how Johnny started it. How he commented on how happy Mark has been lately. Changes have come into Mark’s life, though there’s one that sticks out—a person whose bright red hair is fading as roots grow out and time passes. Months, Mark thinks. It has been months since he’s entered Mark’s life, and he supposes that it was too good to be true. A click as the front door opens, Mark’s breath catching in his throat until he realizes it’s only Taeyong and Yuta who observe them both with careful gazes.

“Jaehyun,” whispers Mark, broken.

Everything, he thinks, is too good to be true. Has always been too good to be true. He let Jaehyun in so far that he’s afraid to let go of him. Doesn’t want to. Fights against the urge to push him towards the future that Mark knows is better for him. Will be better for him. And it’s so easy to ignore what Jaehyun needs when it’s not what Jaehyun himself wants. He looks at Mark with smiles so genuine that Mark can convince himself it’s where he’s supposed to be.

Johnny’s gaze flits away for the barest of moments before trailing back to Mark. “Yes, they—”

“Told me to stay away from him,” Mark’s hands curl into fists in his lap. “Of fuckin’ course. Of course they did. Of course, of course, of course.”

“I told them to mind their own fuckin’ business,” Johnny says, wrapping his arm around Mark’s shoulders. “That it’s not their choice. I just… I needed you to know. Just in case Jaehyun doesn’t come around for a while. You know how people can be, right? The way they talk…”

Happiness will never be something within Mark’s grip, he thinks bitterly, bowing his head. “I know. I know how they talk. I know better than anyone.”

“Then you should know better than anyone,” murmurs Yuta gently, “that they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

“Jaehyun likes coming around, Mark. And he likes your company. All of our company. If no one’s stopped him yet, then I don’t think anyone will.” Taeyong’s hand rests on the crown of his head, patting a few times before he pulls his hand back. “Don’t you trust him?”

Does Mark trust anyone in this backwards town would be a better question. He’s not sure that he does—not sure if he ever did. Johnny, Taeyong, and Yuta aren’t even from this town, though Mark knows that the place they grew in, outgrew, and left was just as small as this place. In small towns, word travels. There’s a pack mentality in the way that they corral around those that don’t fit in. The way that they aim to tear down what they do not understand.

“Trust him?” Mark barks out a laugh, allowing his hands to relax.

Red crescents in his palms are small red pools that eventually overcome their physical barriers, collecting in the cup of his hand. Yuta disappears for a moment before returning, kneeling in front of Mark. His touch is delicate and hesitant, and Mark wishes that he didn’t set them on edge this badly. Rage is as blind as the people around him, he thinks. It’s fitting. They’re all cut from the same thing, anyways.

“I don’t trust him as far as I can fuckin’ throw him.”

_You’ve been happier lately_. Johnny’s words echo in Mark’s hand as Yuta presses gauze to his palms. Fuckin’ bullshit.

* * *

Jeno stands beside a box of things that Mark can already identify. He looks sheepish, hand clasped around his wrist as Jaemin and Donghyuck place two more boxes down in the living room. Behind them, Jaehyun chats amicably with Renjun, two boxes in his arms. The smile he sends Mark is consoling and yet bright. There’s no weight on his shoulders, other than the physical mass of the things in his arms.

For Mark, these boxes are a declaration. Stacked in the living room, he’s not sure what to do with them. He can keep them or burn them—drag them to the abandoned train tracks and set them on fire. No one would appreciate that, and there might be things that Mark will one day wish he kept close. More than anything, though, in the moment he feels anger.

Sadness? Perhaps. A small dash of disappointment. He’s not sure that he expected anything else, though. Jeno approaches him with hesitance, arms wrapping around his older brother tightly. Mark holds him back, and watches as Jaehyun makes himself at home in the kitchen, Renjun, Jaemin, and Donghyuck following around behind him like lost children. It’s a good metaphor, Mark thinks. Jaehyun is something of a less mischievous Peter Pan and they are the lost boys.

“I told them I was taking them to Goodwill. They’re going to know I didn’t, but…,” Jeno’s voice becomes small as he looks towards Donghyuck, who jumps on his brother’s back, “Donghyuck said he and Jaehyun would stop by to help me take them to you. Just in case. And then Jaemin and Renjun said they would, too.”

“Thanks, Jeno.”

“I know,” he hesitates, pulling away to look at the boxes, “that you might not actually want any of this stuff. It’s nothing really important or anything. Jaehyun said he’d come pick up whatever you don’t want to keep and bring it to the landfill. Or the incinerator a couple towns over. Jaemin says he knows someone who works for it.”

Raising an eyebrow, Mark manages a smile. “Jaemin’s quite the character, isn’t he?”

“They all are,” admits Jeno, “but that’s why I like them.”

Jaehyun’s laugh is loud as he drags the three others out of the kitchen, playing along with their antics as they hang off his arms and legs to stop him. Renjun clings to his back, shouting for Jaemin and Donghyuck to hang on as Jaehyun stomps around. It’s mysterious how they’ve settled into this world without Mark inviting them in. Perhaps the door was never closed, he thinks. Perhaps it was always open.

The front door opens to reveal Johnny, Taeyong, and Yuta, groceries in their arms. Donghyuck shouts excitedly in greeting as Jaemin takes the opportunity to sweep Jaehyun’s feet out from under him, cackling as Jaehyun scrambles to keep his face from colliding with the floor. Renjun hops off gracefully, and it’s something of a comedic show as Jaehyun is taken down by three adolescent monsters.

“... Jesus Christ,” mutters Johnny, shaking his head while Taeyong laughs. “Good to see you all.”

“I think I broke my face,” Jaehyun says into the floor, face muffled.

“Good,” Donghyuck prods at his older brother’s side with his foot, “You were too good looking anyways. Serves you right, leaving nothing for me.”

Yuta, walking by, smiles at Mark. “It always gets lively when we leave you home alone.”

Donghyuck, who seems to make a home wherever he is, sets his sights on the Playstation, grabbing Jeno and tugging him towards the television where the others join them. It gives Mark the opportunity to pick Jaehyun up off the ground. His cheek is red from where it collided with the floor, but he’s otherwise unscathed, eyes full of mirth in the sort of way Mark always sees but never expects.

For as many times as Jaehyun is broken and beaten down, he is eager to pick himself back up. “By the way,” Jaehyun presses his hand against his cheek, pleased to see no blood, “I’ll help you with the boxes, if you want. I can, like, take them wherever you want or need them to go. Or, like, I can find somewhere to store them, probably. Sicheng’s parents don’t give a fuck what he does, so I’m sure I can ask him to hold onto them if there’s anything you want to keep.”

Mark isn’t sure what memories are tucked away in those boxes. He’s not sure what they’ll look like when he unravels them to determine whether they’re right to keep. Jaehyun doesn’t need to be there for that, even if he wants to be. Though it’s not like Mark has ever been particularly good at stopping Jaehyun from doing what he wants. He’s something of an unstoppable force with the freedom he has found. In another time, in another place, Mark thinks that it’d piss him off. It doesn’t. Not anymore, anyways.

“That’d be great,” Mark replies, smoothing down his shirt. “I’ll let you know.”

In the living room, the kids shout and scream and laugh. Life blossoms in the kitchen, and Mark doesn’t think that this place has ever felt so alive. What once felt like a temporary prison has begun to feel like a home in a way that Mark never expected it to. He still wishes to escape this town. The people around him, however, buffer the time he must spend here before he can leave.

“Oh!” Jaehyun says, blinking, his smile wide. “I wanted _you_ to be one of the first to know. Obviously I had to tell my family, but… I received a full ride to a university a few states over. Like, tuition, board, everything. There’s probably a catch—there has to be—but, I don’t really care. First step towards freedom, right?”

“Congrats.” Mark isn’t sure what to say other than that. He tacks on a, “Let’s celebrate,” a little belatedly. It’s forced and it’s awkward, but Jaehyun brushes it aside in favor of smiling, his eyes crinkling at the edges. For Jaehyun to place him so high in his order of importance feels like something he never actually earned as someone that the town is so determined to separate him from. Mark doesn't understand Jaehyun Jung, not that he’s ever actually going to.

“Let’s go get ice cream, then,” Jaehyun offers, shrugging. “My treat.”

In the living room, the kids cheer. Mark grins before speaking. “Can’t. Lactose intolerant.”

“Well, that sucks to be you, then.”

“Yeah,” he says, with a laugh. “Sometimes.”

* * *

“I heard people talking the other day,” Mark says, staring out the window, “about how I’m no good for you. About how I fucked you up.”

Scoffing, Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “I don’t give a fuck,” he whispers, shaking his head. “They can think whatever they want. Say whatever they want. I got a full ride. I’m going to college. I don’t think you fucked me up at all. If anything, I’m doing better.”

Mark can’t say anything. Instead he rolls the window down and lights a cigarette. The empty roads in front of them seem to go on for forever. Mark wonders how far they would take him—if he could drive down it and never stop. Part of him wants to try it. He thinks that Jaehyun would go with him. Jaehyun would hop into the passenger seat with a smile and ask Mark how long it would take to reach the next gas station before passing out. And Mark would wake him up hours later at a gas station where he would buy them snacks and ask how loudly he snored. Not loud, Mark will lie. Not at all.

Jaehyun would say yes without hesitation. Allow Mark to drag him to the ends of the earth, even if it meant certain failure. He _trusts_ Mark in a way that he’s not sure he deserves. The smoke from his lips splits itself between the sky and within the car. It’s like his guilt, which has been split. Jaehyun coaxes it out of him with smiles and laughter that’s awfully bright for someone whose future feels so uncertain. Johnny’s voice echoes in the back of his head as he throws the door open, tossing his cigarette on the ground before crushing it with the heel of his shoe. Watching him with curiosity, Jaehyun voices his concern.

“Don’t litter. You should pick it up.” He stares at Mark until he’s unlooping the seatbelt from around his body and reaching out of the car.

Mark looks at him with amazement before laughing. The cigarette butt is deposited in an empty cup holder. “There. Happy?”

“Very.”

“I don’t understand you, Jung. You make no fuckin’ sense. Are you alright up there?” Mark knocks against Jaehyun’s forehead, laughing as his hand is swapped away. “Most people don’t just throw away what they have for no reason.”

“Yeah, well,” Jaehyun pulls his legs up against his chest, “I’ve never been like most people, now have I? Or, well, I was. And now I’m not. I’m learning to be myself.”

He’s been there. He’s done that. Mark remembers growing into himself. It was painful, and he was listless, and the world around him offered no support until he was extricated from it. The landing was far from smooth, and it wasn’t on solid ground. He still perches on a cliff, precarious, unsure of what awaits him beneath all the clouds. If it is water, Mark thinks that he will drown. If it is land, Mark thinks he will fall without being able to stand back up.

Jaehyun looks ready for it. There’s a life still in his eyes that Mark did not have. A life in his eyes that he wants to protect. He’s not particularly sure how to go about it, or how to get his own back. The ends are all open for them, and Mark can only decide that he wants to escape. Even if it means jumping through clouds and closing his eyes, hoping for the best.

“Do you ever hate me for that, by the way? Did you? Do you?” His head turns so fast the joints crack, and it’s automatic, the way Jaehyun’s hand reaches up to press against his neck. “I’d understand if you did. God, the way that I watched the way they treated you and did nothing to stop it.”

“Beatin’ yourself up over it won’t change anything.” Mark watches the way Jaehyun’s gaze trails to his lip where he knows there is a scar. It’s fading, but it won’t ever disappear all the way. Somewhat like the trauma. “It happened. It’s over, ya know? No point in lettin’ it stick in your head or whatever. I’m not angry with you about it, if that’s what you’re askin’. I could care less who you were. I just care about who you are now.”

Jaehyun’s voice is so small when he speaks that Mark isn’t sure he hears him correctly. It strains against the sounds of the world outside. It’s shifting from day to night, and different signs of life filter in through the air. It’s chilly, and Mark thinks that there’s no point in keeping the windows open. If he exhales, condensation builds, plastering itself to the windshield. It’s a green January, no sign of snow. Nothing to blanket the way the world around them is dying.

Changing.

“Do you _like_ who I am now?” Jaehyun asks, softly.

Mark turns the question over in his head, contemplating the nature of it. It’s a loaded sort of question, and Mark isn’t sure how to answer it. Like is a strong word for his vocabulary, though he supposes that it fits the way he feels about Jaehyun. There’s still a part of him that wishes to push Jaehyun away and back into the world that will be kinder to him; the future that will accept him and lead to success.

Who Jaehyun is now is not much different from who he was before, Mark thinks. It’s simply a Jaehyun that can see farther than before. There are still remnants of who he was, of who he was going to be, and where he was going to end up. It exists at the edges, still close enough that he knows Jaehyun can see. The Jaehyun of now, though, can also see Mark—the Mark that is buried under all of the debris picked up in his proverbial fall from grace.

“Do I like who you are now?” echoes Mark, looking towards Jaehyun.

There’s fear and uncertainty and nervousness in Jaehyun’s gaze. Mark cannot placate it fully. He never will. “Do you _trust_ me?”

“No,” Mark answers honestly, hands resting on the steering wheel, “I don’t. But I’m learning to, I think.”

“Oh.” Jaehyun’s voice is soft, and delicate, and a smile begins to build at the edges of his mouth. Hands folded neatly in his lap, he reaches up to tug at his hair, roots grown out and cut even. “ _Oh_.”

* * *

In the driver’s seat, Jaehyun chews on his bottom lip until Donghyuck kicks his chair from behind. Mark watches in amusement as Jaehyun opens his mouth, cut off by Donghyuck before he can even say anything. They bicker in a light-hearted sort of way that soothes the worry that picks at the edges of Jaehyun’s mind. The four of them—Jeno smiles at Mark from beside Donghyuck—are hours from their small town, boxes of Mark’s old shit stuffed into the trunk.

They don’t need to be there. Mark could be doing this on his own. And, in a way, he should be doing this on his own. This is a part of his life that he can tackle on his own. The memories he had stored away so carefully unraveled in front of Mark and Jaehyun at four in the morning on a Sunday.

Some are left in Sicheng Dong’s garage, hidden in the attic. There’s some sort of knowing look shared between Jaehyun and him before they leave, Renjun pressing a bag of snacks into each of their hands before telling them to get going before Jaemin arrives on his bike begging to go along with them. Mark wouldn’t mind the company, but Jeno ushers them into the car and begs Jaehyun to drive away before he can join.

There’s something so satisfying of watching the physical manifestations of memories you wish to forget burst into flames, even if it’s from a safe distance. It’s odd, the way that the weight that always seems to rest on his shoulder is lighter when they leave; even lighter when Jaehyun stops in a McDonald’s and treats them all to a cheap early dinner; the lightest when Jaehyun drops Jeno and Donghyuck off at Renjun’s and tells them to take care.

Jaehyun fits into this world whether Mark wishes for him to or not. He has settled into it and blossomed in the sort of way Mark could not. There are regrets, still, and Mark wonders if there always will be. Jaehyun enters his home with ease and Mark figures that there’s no use dwelling on them.

“Oh, thank fucking God,” Taeyong calls from the kitchen. “Jaehyun, come help me out. Mark, keep Yuta and Johnny entertained or something.”

“What’d you do?” asks Mark with a laugh as Yuta and Johnny emerge, receiving a comforting pat on the back, each, from Jaehyun, before he disappears into the kitchen. “Did you break something _again_?”

“It was _just_ a plate.”

“Just a plate?!” Taeyong shouts.

Laughter trails out from the kitchen, and Mark thinks that he can settle in this place and call it a real home for now.

**Author's Note:**

> tags will continue to be updated as the fic is updated! :]  
> twitter: [@/haechansheaven](https://twitter.com/haechansheaven)


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